Greater Metropolitan Real Estate

I am the owner of a 3 family house. Because of my job I have to travel a lot. For the last 8 years John Federico has been founding me great tenants and never lost a month’s rent. I only have to make one phone call to John when I get a notice that a tenant is leaving and John takes care of the rest. John and his office are great.

The people at GMRE were courteous, patient, and knowledgeable. They made themselves available according to my schedule and offered me transportation to other apartments I wanted to see (not under GMRE listings) because I did not have a car at the time. We went through the entire lease together and were able to get through all of my questions regarding the property and neighborhood. Would highly recommend.

John Federico at Greater Metropolitan hooked me up with a fine apartment in Medford, based on my list of requirements. John was very responsive and early to our appointments. Once i had made a decision John and William Brennan in the GMRE Medford office took me through closing process in a highly organized and easy-​to-​understand fashion. They were flexible around the move-​in date and made the entire process very smooth. Highly recommended.

This experience was the first time I ever actually dealt with a realtor, every other apartment I have lived in has been discovered on craigslist and I worked directly with the owner; oftentimes to results that made me want to go a different route this time around.
I actually found GMRE through a site called
(which I highly recommend) and was lucky enough to stumble across a truly fantastic apartment. The pictures were great, the posting was clear and concise, and the cost was very fair. I e-​mailed, told a little about myself and I said I was available the next night for a showing. Within a few hours, William (the owner) set me up with a time!
The apartment was fantastic as stated before, but William (our rental agent) was just as good; super friendly, very well spoken, and incredibly knowledgable. After the showing, he drove us to the T and wished us good luck. I went home, filled out the application, faxed it the next morning, and by mid afternoon that day, I had an awesome new apartment that I’m so excited about. He then set up a meeting for us with the owner, and we went over the lease, sat down at his office, and talked for about 45 minutes and really got to know our new landlord. I believe this was absolutely invaluable, and the whole process took about 4 days, start to finish.
HIGHLY recommend!

I just tried to give zero stars, and it wouldn’t let me.
My husband and I had to work with GMRE to see an apartment we saw on Craigslist in April. We know that apartments typically get rented within a day, if not hours, of being posted on Craigslist, so we were prepared to win.
We have been looking for a reasonably-​priced (max $ 1300) 1+ bedroom in Somerville for over a year, and have struggled — we currently live in a teeny apartment on Winter Hill and want to stay in the area, since my husband teaches at the high school. We are both public employees and can’t afford to pay $ 1500 or $ 1600 for an apartment.
So, when we saw this place, we contacted the agent for GMRE listed on the ad, and made it clear we were serious about getting this place and were willing to do anything to see it first. It only cost $ 1100 for two bedrooms, and they offered off-​street parking for our one car, and would also allowed our cat. Even better, they had lead-​free paint, which is critical to a young couple like us that is hoping to start a family (but who are stymied by the high cost of renting a 2-​bedroom).
We said we were willing to put down any amount in order to secure it – in my experience, getting an apartment comes down to seeing it first and bringing your checkbook.
Apparently not with these guys.
When we asked to see it, we were told to come by two days later, on Good Friday. Since we celebrate Good Friday, we asked if they could show it to us sooner. After a lot of hemming and hawing, they agreed, and we made an appointment to see it Wednesday night after work. Dan told us «hopefully you’ll be the first ones to put in your application — lots of people want this place!»
About ten minutes after we made the appointment, the apartment was RE-​POSTED on Craigslist with a different agent’s name as an «Open House.»
WTF??? Not cool. I should have known then.
So we freaked out, we got to the appointment 10 minutes early, and even though there were about 30 people there (annoying), we were the first ones to put down an application. We put money down immediately.
We have near-​perfect credit, steady income, good jobs and outstanding references from our current tenant. We were thrilled to hear that the landlords, who lived on the first floor, are Italian (like me) and speak Italian (also like me).
We waited for days to hear. After having our phone calls go un-​returned, we finally got Dan on the phone. He told us it «was between us and another guy» who had gone back the next day with his girlfriend to meet the landlord.
Funny. WE were told the landlord didn’t want to meet prospective tenants. And when we asked to be given the opportunity to meet the landlords, we were denied.
Yet they still ran our credit report, dinging our scores for no reason. And to make matters worse, they kept our down payment and stopped returning our calls and emails attempting to get our check back for days.
We obviously never had a chance of getting the place, yet they wasted our time, tied up our money and hurt our credit by needlessly checking our report. Who knows why they favored the other couple? I don’t care — just don’t string me along and lie to me.
They never even called our current landlord for reference.
And, as you’d expect, we still haven’t found another apartment.
We are quiet, we shovel, we take out the trash, we make small repairs to our unit and we pay our rent early every month. But that apparently counts for nothing.
I will never, ever work with GMRE again.