Good property managers in Boston MA or Calgary AB?

April 15, 2008 11:27 AM

Tenants or owners, please rave or rant about recent experiences with property management companies in 1. Boston, MA, or 2. Calgary, AB.

Tenants or owners, please rave or rant about recent experiences with property management companies in 1. Boston, MA, or 2. Calgary, AB.

1. We're moving to CA and want to rent out our Back Bay condo. I'm particularly interested in peoples' experiences with NextGenRealty, Jacob Realty, or Boardwalk Properties, Century 21 / Shawmut Properties, Boston Choice Properties, and Brownstone Real Estate Co.. These are the companies that we have either had preliminary meetings with, or had recommended to us.

2. I have a house in Calgary (NW, close to the university) that has been managed by a relative for the past several years, but current circumstances require hiring a different company. I'm considering Residential Leasing Group, RealtyEdge Group, Hope Street Real Estate Group, Emerald Management & Realty, and Amhurst Property Management.

For both locations, we'd like to hire a property management company that screens tenants appropriately, does preventative maintenance as well as responds promptly to tenants' requests for repairs, and as much as possible, meets the standards laid out in this comment and these answers about good property managing. All of the companies above claim to offer superlative service. I have checked online reviews (bearing in mind that some companies give themselves glowing reviews). I'd just like to know, from people who've actually dealt with them, whether they practice what they preach.

posted by cybercoitus interruptus to work & money (5 comments total)

I've was a tenant with Emerald and let me say they are ruthless bastards. Had absolutely no response to any sort of maintenance issues and it was hell getting the dd back.
posted by chugg at 11:48 AM on April 15, 2008

My landlord uses ActionVest (in Boston) and they are good about repairs and did a credit check. I have no complaints.
posted by phoenixy at 2:16 PM on April 15, 2008

Amhurst provides the management for my previous condo in Kensington (in Calgary) and while my experience with them was minimal, I have nothing bad to say. One time there was some minor water leaking from my ceiling, and one call to Amhurst got everything taken care of quickly; they even called me once or twice to let me know how plans were progressing. Once I totally forgot to send them a check, and brought it to them a day late - I apologized and they didn't penalize me or anything. The office staff are very friendly, in my experience.

Good luck!
posted by chudmonkey at 10:05 PM on April 15, 2008

Your answers are helping to bring my stress levels down. Concrete info like this is priceless. Thanks for replying!
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 2:14 PM on April 16, 2008

(Also: probably in response to break-ins in the building, I just got a note under my door today saying that they would be adding a secondary, harder-to-pick lock my unit. Cool! I even didn't ask for that, they just decided to do it.)
posted by phoenixy at 2:24 PM on April 16, 2008