Apple G Real Estate

Yup. I know from experience. They have nothing but utter contempt. I can’t ever begin to tell you how many unprofessional things I saw in that office. The people showing you the apartments are not accredited, btw, not by a long shot. DO NOT DO BUSINESS HERE IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. Nasty people too.

These people keep calling our church asking if we want to sell property. Now they are calling my cell phone even though I have it registered under the Government’s DO NOT CALL Registry.

Not much good to say about this place, just read the reviews. My advice? Be aware!!! Use at your own risk!!!
«money money money money, MONEY
some people got to have it
hey, hey, hey — some people really need it»
Wake up people!!!

Awful. I was rejected for the apartment, and they didn’t want to give me my $ 1,000 deposit back.
Had to go there with my mother to get it back.
Money hungry, desperate bussiness.
Oh, and Crystal, if you’re reading this … you’re a bitch — be nicer to people. Also, dress more appropriately — you work at a realty agency, duh.
Sam is a nice guy, but this place is just a hustling place. The apartment are so expensive. I ended up switching to CitiHabitats and got locked into a very inexpensive rent controlled apartment four blocks away from Apple G.

They are just thieves! They promised me a moving date when the renovation of the apartment was ending. The renovation didn’t finish on time and I needed to move, so I asked my deposit back (as they didn’t respect the terms of the contract.)
I never got my money back!

They said anything to get us into an apartment and lied about so many things. They’re thieves.

HURRY! RUN FAST IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION! NOW! Seriously, this place has 2 stars for a reason and I am only going to confirm why. Don’t even bother wasting your time reading. Just get FAR FAR away from Apple G as fast as you can! BUT if after all my yelling you still wanna read my horrendous story please by aaalll means:
I replied to a craiglists add about an apartment not knowing at first that it was a real estate agency that posted it on behalf of the landlord. I had never used a real estate agency before since I had done sublets via craiglist but I could no longer be picky and needed to find a place ASAP. First off it seems that it’s who you deal with that makes the difference in this place but I have dealt with Laura, Marissa, and Etai (spelling?) and they all make promises they don’t keep. Aaaanyway, let’s cut to the chase. I looked at my apartment on 2÷12÷14 and paid my deposit to hold my spot the very next day, providing all required documenation to them that day so that I could find out if I was approved right away. Now, I understand the process. I am not someone that has horrible credit and was expecting to get a place without a guarantor and then when I didn’t I’m pissed so I wrote a bad review. I am someone will above average credit that was told by mutliple people at Apple G that my credentials looked positive and that I would most likely get approved. After over a week of giving me the run around in terms of whether I was approved and continuously saying «everything looks good» «your application looks great» and «we will have the final answer tomorrow» (lies!!) they basically must have absolutely no relationship with the landlords they work for because they waited until every roommate had their documentations in to THEN tell all of us that we needed guarantors even with great credit less than a week before we had to move in. And told us we needed to get them the guarantor information (assuming we even had one) in 24 hours. Oh, and pay another $ 75 application fee on top of the $ 50 one we already paid. They lied about numerous things throughout the process, one really important thing being that there was no heating system in the entire building and the apartment is heated via electric heaters. That was told to us at lease signing! When we had no choice but to move there basically! Throughout the whole process everyone I dealt with was completely superficially friendly making blanketed statements about it all working out and «being with you every step of the way» when they were not, in fact, with us every step of the way and would often completely ignore emails, phone calls, and text messages.
I initially started this review back in March. Seems as though I was so heated and upset that I never finished it and just realized now when posting. So I don’t remember if my thoughts were going to continue but just heed this warning and steer clear.

I had a pretty good experience with Apple G. I answered the ad, was shown the 2-​bedroom apartment the next day by Christina, and made my deposit immediately after. I was skeptical of making a deposit before reviewing the lease or even having a roommate but Christina found me a roommate 2 days later and our lease was signed less than a week after. We moved in and got our keys with no issues. Christina was helpful and communicative throughout the whole process. Overall I was satisfied with the experience, considering how frustrating moving in NYC is.

Too bad i can’t give 0 stars.
Rated F by better business bureau.
Person who shows the apartment has nothing to do with the building management!!! So no matter how friendly and nice the guy or the girl is, DO NOT think that this is any indication that this realty is trying to «change» or «improve». (The girl who wrote the review right below this one unfortunately fell for this trick). The nice person who shows you the apartment isn’t gonna help you with anything else except to hook you into putting in a deposit with this terrible company!
Another person who claims they «manage» the building doesn’t have to manage the building thanks to a clause on the lease clearing them of any responsibility. So basically, they don’t care that you have a fake live-​in super, an unreliable contractor, or that some of the safety features required by law aren’t working properly for the first few weeks of your stay.
(There is no «live-​in» super, he lives in some other building on the street. The super knows nothing about fixing buildings, just calls some contractor who comes to only temporarily fix things. Emphasis on — temporarily.)
They require a «deposit» without showing you the terms of the lease, so that in case you happen to not like the terms on the lease and you don’t want to move in, you LOSE your lease. You may think that you might get back your deposit back when you’re handing them the check, but that’s only if they reject your application or you can’t move-​in by the move-​in date. Ask them to prove escrow acct for the security deposit and see what they say… they can’t… ummm illegal?
So basically, they don’t care about your apartment or what kind of state you’re living in. They make money from either your «holding room» or «application» fee if you don’t decide to move-​in, or from your rent (if you make the unfortunate decision of having to deal with this realty company at all in the first place).

Moving to NYC with a week to find a room had me in nervous wreck! I was fortunate enough to stumble across an add on craigslist posted by Apple G. Leigh found me exactly what I was looking for. She was patient and listened to my requests (price range, hard wood floors, a dining room that has not been converted into a bedroom). What I admired most is her honesty on the apartment/​location; she didn’t sugar coat anything just to make a sale. I can’t tell you how many timesI felt pressured into making a deposit before seeing a few places. It’s like pay now or «next in line». Many realtors forget what it was like when they moved into their first apartment and treat you like a customer at an auction causing you more stress. Thank you Leigh for being so personable and taking the time to show me a couple rooms until I found my ideal place.
My only complaint is that Apple G would not give me my apartment key after I made my deposit!!! I had to wait until the rest of my roommates left a deposit and signed our lease which was pretty inconvenient. Luckily, that only took 2 days… other than that I’m a happy camper :)

AVOID AVOID AVOID thats all i have to say I am in the middle of a BS pickle because of them. I will go into details about this after with screenshots. Because I am suppose to move tomorrow! Which is April 1^st 2014, from Boston to Brooklyn.
BUT AVOID Do not give them money. Ronald Jason is the name of my realtor, and told me he lives in Greenpoint when I met him. I think I see him posting a 5-​star review below on this page from last year. Nice try, I think the only 5 star reviews are from their friends or employees.

These guys are as bad as you’ve heard. No they didn’t take our money and yes, we ended up in a place, but the journey to get there was painful and they couldn’t have been less helpful at every step along the way. Avoid.

I wish I could review this twice, because I have two very different opinions on the place:
5 stars: The brokers we worked with, Alma Cosgrove and Sam, were absolutely awesome. They were kind, honest, and very open to all of our questions. The were super patient with us, and found us an incredible apartment. I also brought up the negative reviews, which Alma responded to very neutrally. I cannot recommend them enough!
2 stars: The rest of the staff, particularly the office workers, have a rude «you owe us» attitude. They definitely subscribe to the idea that they are doing us a favor by letting us pay them for an apartment. While my questions to Alma and Sam were met with smiles, I could tell that the office staff were visibly annoyed.
If you have a bad credit score or another factor that would prevent you from renting, find a different place — the negative reviews I’ve read on here are generally from people who’ve required guarantors. Clearly the office staff doesn’t have the wherewithal to react to those situations with any shred of professionalism.
Bottom line: If you want friendly, efficent, patient service, go directly to Sam or Alma. Additionally, make sure you have all of your paperwork and money ready to go.

Don’t use this real estate company. Me and my room-​mates are nearing the end of our lease and have now realized that the «security deposit», which was a full month of rent, we gave to Apple G was never given to our landlord.
They basically have outright stolen our money and who knows if we will ever see it again. I also looked up our agent that we used and her real estate license has been revoked currently.
Don’t use these people!

The staff are the MOST unprofessional staff ever. Trying to contact these people to give my deposit back has been hell. Every time you call, you get something on the lines of «We’ll call you back» and they will NEVER call you back. However, when it came to asking for they money they waited not a second longer asking for a deposit and all that stuff. The girl I worked with stopped answering my calls and coincidentally was «never in the office» whenever I called. These people are liars and scammers. They run this business with no type of integrity. STAY AWAY

Like many other negative reviews on here, please follow their advice and avoid using this real estate company.
Long story short, they refused to give us our deposit money back even after confirming in writing that they would refund it to us (we were «rejected» after applying for an apartment so we wanted to go with another company). We eventually took them to small claims court, and WON (they never even showed up). Even after that it took three months for them to give us the deposit, but after contacting the NY secretary of state and Brooklyn sheriff’s department, they finally returned it to us.
Moral of the story: If they refuse to refund your deposit after ‘rejecting’ you, you are rightfully owed that money. And if they still refuse, take them to small claims court, because they won’t show up.

Sam, our apartment agent, was amazing. He knew we were really pressed to find a place, and he hustled us around to at least 5 different places in one night. He didn’t show us crap, either, he really listened to what we wanted, and by the end of the evening, we really had a lot to think about. The next morning we let him know we were interested in one of the apartments, and he told us exactly what we needed to apply and take it off the market — app fee, deposit, the kind of paperwork we’d need to fill out… he was on it.
Dealing with the office, Crystal was our go-​to girl, and she made sure we had every piece of paper that she thought would be helpful to lock the place in. Since I did have the option of bringing in a guarantor, she suggested we just do it and not wait for the landlord to maybe ask. Which was a great plan, because it took about 4 hours for the landlord to review our application and decide that YES indeed, the place would be ours! After that Crystal stayed in communication with us, and made sure we knew exactly what to do to finalize the deal.
I can’t recommend them highly enough. Between Sam and Crystal, we had ourselves a new beautiful apartment within a week. I hate dealing with brokers, but these guys really turned my opinion around.
Advice: If you’re a student with a part-​time job, you’re going to need a guarantor — if you’ve held your new, awesome, good-​paying job for less than a month, you’re probably going to need a guarantor — if you have crappy credit, you’re probably going to need a guarantor. I don’t like it either, but it’s the way it works in NYC, unless you meet some cool landlord somewhere, or sublet from a friend. And yes, I’m lucky that I had one. You can’t complain that no one could help you if you’re not prepared to help yourself!

AVOID! Please Listen. AVOID.
If you value your money, your time, courtesy or goodwill toward mankind… AVOID.
They will lie to you and steal your money without so much as a smile.
I just can’t emphasize this enough — do not trust these people. Please let our experience be a warning and AVOID. I would hate for what happened to us to happen to anyone else. You deserve more.
In (somewhat) brief…
We handed over $ 100 for credit checks and $ 1000 to «take the apt. off the market» (this is illegal, by the by, check the ‘Brokers’ section of the NY State Tenant Rights Guide). We were then told that we needed a guarantor — which we did not have. After being told that our application was rejected we found another apartment, expecting that Apple G would return our deposit. The contract clearly states that they must return the deposit if it is their decision to reject the application. They did not. And they were NASTY about it. We went back and forth with them for over a month. Sometimes they would avoid us entirely, sometimes they would shout at us on the phone. Sometimes we would receive such priceless emails as this one, transcribed in it’s bizarre, illiterate entirety:
«We spoke with the landlord and he don’t wanna give u the deposit back you guys change the mind and back out !!
Im very sorry but we try are best»
What??! Our application was rejected, we did not «change the mind». Also, just what?
By a total stroke of luck, I was able to scrounge up contact info for the landlord. I called him and surprise! he did not have our money. Nor had anyone at Apple G spoken to him. No one at Apple G had ‘tried their best’ at anything. Being a genuinely amazing and empathetic man with ‘daughters about my age’, the landlord was furious on our behalf. He immediately called Apple G and demanded that they return our deposit or he would take all of his properties off the market and reject all future applications from Apple G. Thank you, sir. You are a saint.
Within minutes Apple G called to ask when we could pick up our deposit.
Of course, this is a success story. But not, probably, a common one. It was sheer luck that we got our money back and I’m sure we would have never seen a dime of it if some threat hadn’t been so artfully wielded by that awesome landlord. Again, thank you good sir.
Also — weird side note… They gave us the deposit in cash. They made out a check to us and then the boss came out of his office and said they’d give us cash instead. Just shady.
Read other Unilocal reviews, check out their F Rating by the Better Business Bureau and again, just AVOID.
I’m sorry that people like this exist, but we can choose to not deal with them.
Best of luck in your apartment search! The next apartment experience for us is a whole other ball of nightmare, but that is a story for another time…

I am editing this again because for some reason, Unilocal is filtering out my review and I am hoping to publish it again so it might stick.
I would recommend this company and would use them again. I became involved with AppleG as the guarantor of my college student’s new apartment. She had already put down the (non-​refundable) $ 900 and was going through the paperwork motions after seeing an agreeable apartment and agreeing to terms.
Shortly thereafter I saw the Unilocal reviews (my daughter saw them online) and became deeply concerned about the company. If I had read Unilocal first, I would have walked away before getting involved. As it was, I proceeded with distrust, wondering if we were making a mistake. Happy to report, we didn’t make a mistake.
UPDATE: Dennis our first rep had a family emergency which is why we didn’t hear from him. But we were supported by Crystal who took care of our questions all week. I could tell that the office was extremely busy and she took multiple calls from me with concern and courtesy – in spite of the fact that some of my questions were already answered in the emails she had sent me and that I didn’t read entirely.
When we were notified on Friday that the signing would be Monday – likely due to the landlord’s holiday and Dennis being who knew we absolutely needed occupancy by the 15^th – I panicked. One phone call to Crystal took care of it. She arranged for Ronald – who contacted me back personally to assure us that he would get the keys for the Sunday move-​in despite the fact that the official signing wouldn’t be until Monday evening. Thank you Ronald for going to bat with the landlord on this.
Long story short – I ONLY panicked because of the Unilocal reviews, but I brought our potential emergency to the attention of AppleG (well, Crystal) it was taken care of immediately.
Point of my story is that one of the feedbacks that I read was that AppleG ‘preys’ on young people looking for apartments. I disagree. There comes a point where you need to advocate for yourself – read everything first – question if you are confused, stay in touch, and DON’T wait until the last minute if a detail isn’t resolved. I wonder about the number of extremely negative reviews and feel they should be required to give explicit details as to what went wrong, instead of a blanket denunciation. I believe that there is something very wrong with this ‘model’ of reporting.

THIS PLACE IS A TOTAL SCAM. STAY AWAY FROM THEM IF AT ALL POSSIBLE. They will flat out lie to you any way they can to take money from you. It doesn’t matter how they have to take advantage of you.
They presented one start of lease date when I gave my deposit and then when it came time to sign the lease they were asking me for a second deposit. Not only did the lease change by a week in their favor but the price for the apartment had now gone up $ 100/​mo.
It seems they have built their operation on taking advantage of unsuspecting young people that are new to the big city of New York, specifically Brooklyn.
They should be put out of business for such unethical, and quite frankly illegal, business practices.
What ever you do, stay away from them. They don’t care about you. They only care about taking your hard earned money.

— Go to their FILTERED reviews on Unilocal,point blank — Apple G is full of CROOKS and THIEVES that prey on the naiveté of fresh, young Brooklyn renters.
— After 48 hours of looking for an apt. with this «company», I settled on this $ 1000 (rip off for that area BTW) per mo. Crown Heights apt. I was informed that to «hold» (PS this is really ILLEGAL) an apartment I needed to give Apple G $ 500 dollars by my broker. I said fine, being I was in a rush and had to make an executive decision for my roommate who was in Seattle at the time, and I was the only one seeing the apartment.
— After talking to my then roommate within LESS than 24 hours, I texted my broker at 5 AM stating my roommate and I are no longer comfortable with our decision due to the area of our apt and that we’d like our «deposit”/“hold» money back.
— My roommate HAD NOT even submitted HER paperwork, hence the application wasn’t even processed or by any means complete. I had photo evidence that even proves that my broker ADMITTED to not even processing the application to this alleged owner. Apple G’s «contract» stated this $ 500 is non-​refundable due to my signature, but I told my broker according to this piece of paper made by the IQ of a 2 year old, that in order for this to be the case I needed to be APPROVED by the owner… who I had no contact with within the 24 hours mentioned.
— So… because Apple G admitted that my application wasn’t even completed and processed I rightfully and kindly asked them to please give me back my money.
— Abe The Owner steps in, this chauvinistic pig refused to talk to me or my roommate and HUNG up on us after calling us unnecessary names… he also REFUSED to give us the contact of said «owner» of the apartment we didn’t fully apply to. Abe is essentially this greasy guido that is STEALING money from innocent renters because he made faulty investments (according to his own employees and evidently so). Katherine, their angel of an office assistant even joined in on the name calling, screening phone calls, and hang up fest.
— Finally my roommate and I agreed to CONTINUE working WITH Apple G and asked if we can transfer the deposit to another apartment when my roommate did arrive, they said no.
— Naturally, I filed for small claims. This happened on August 2012, my court date is FEBRUARY 2013. So 6+ months and 3 hours of my work day (waiting for judge from 630p-​930p) is wasted based on their unethical business practices. If they don’t pay up, I will have go to a Marshall, fun times indeed.
— I try really, really, hard to not wish anything badly upon people (because I love Jesus haha) so I’ve decided that wishing people to shart themseleves in public is a good medium… have at it Apple G.
Us Unilocalers should be joining forces soon, the fact that these people are still in business is beyond my comprehension.