Brownstone Management

Absolutely atrocious experience! They managed our building for the past 3 years and we’ve never dealt with less professional people. Their accounting is truly worrisome, a simple maintenance charge statement from these people is somehow incorrect and different every month. They are highly unorganized and don’t keep records filed for inspections. Their handyman services are a joke! Everyone who has tried them in our building (a few dozen apts) has done so only once. Completely reckless amateurs! It’s impossible to fathom how companies like these stay in business…

Very responsive management team and quick & well-​done repairs

If I could give zero stars I would. Our agent for our building in Brooklyn, from this management office, is the most unprofessional, rude, disorganized management person I have ever dealt with. The office is a mess, accounting is a joke and their bills are constantly incorrect.

Our building recently (within the last year) hired Brownstone to manage our 24 unit coop. Since they also provide handyman service I scheduled an appointment to have various leaks addressed (toilet, kitchen sink, etc.) Brownstone sent over their handyman Alex and he was great! Alex even went out of his way to fix a few other things gratis while he was over. Unfortunately, one leak returned very quickly and Brownstone was able to squeeze me in despite a horrible snow storm. Everything is working well now and I would definitely hire Alex again in the future. Thank you!

Not many Property Management Companies in Brooklyn offer ²⁴⁄₇ on-​call repair service like Brownstone. Taking care of issues like these, along with a long list of other things, really get rid of the headaches that sometimes come with owning investment properties. «Time is money» as they say, and I’d personally prefer a reliable group like this one — handle the day to day with the management of my properties… Now I can actually enjoy New York for a change, and deal with less of the not so fun stuff that unfortunately goes with owning real estate.
Keep up the good work guys, thanks!

I have used the services of Brownstone Management for over a decade. The latest incident is a prime example of why. Late Saturday night, December 6, a tenant sent an email to me, the management company and other tenants informing us that he smelled gas when he came home and called the gas company. National Grid came over, found the source of the leak and turned the gas off. On Sunday morning I called Brownstone who contacted Alex who was on call that weekend. Alex arranged for a plumber to go to the building on Sunday afternoon. The plumber fixed what he could and returned Monday morning to complete the job. We could not arrange for the gas to be turned back on until Tuesday. Alex assured me that he would meet the utility representatives whenever they got there. In the meantime, he brought over space heaters to keep the tenants warm on a chilly night! Repairs were complete and service restored in two and a half days. The tenants and I were grateful for the diligence and speed in taking care of this emergency.

Our building is tip top and they’re always responsive to whatever comes up. It’s clear using Brownstone is way for a building to maintain and increase it’s real estate value over time. Greg Doyley CPM, whose in charge of our building is always available, friendly, and knowledgeable; whatever the issue. He knows the area and the vendors for those times when you’re building will need, this, that, or the other.

I lived in a Brownstone Management property for five years, and was continually treated with disrespect. Everyone I communicated with was rude, when they got back to me, and most of the time, I had to send multiple (3+) emails and call multiple times (sometimes over the course of MONTHS) to get through to them, whether it was about serious and necessary repairs, renewing a lease, or anything else. When I did get ahold of the person who was allegedly our property manager, she would be vague, unhelpful, and disrespectful. We signed a renewed lease once and our property manager promised to email us a digital copy, which she never did, despite multiple requests. It took multiple months for them to fix a door that fell off of a closet (poorly affixed in the first place, and it fell off after a few years), and then when it fell over onto the floor and got damaged (because it was not affixed and they took many months to repair it), the company tried to charge us for the damage. I had to re-​send them their own email correspondences (multiple times) about the door in order to not be charged for damage that was clearly and demonstrably their fault. We always paid our rent on time, and were excellent tenants, and nonetheless it was constantly a struggle to interact with this company. I would not wish them on anyone. The only caveat is that the folks who work for Brownstone and do the repairs themselves are quite friendly and very helpful, unlike the management and all property managers. Unfortunately, these are not the only representatives of Brownstone that one has to interact with.

Brownstone Management was GREAT in helping us get our property rented quickly and without any hassles. They had tons of showings, did a very thorough job in screening ALL applicants that were interested and found us a super renter. We appreciate the help they provided and will give them a call back the next time we are in need.

I read the many one-​star reviews of Brownstone Management, and against all my better judgment went with them anyway. We needed someone to manage our two-​family brownstone as we were moving out of the country. After fifteen months of headaches, we are finally free of them.
There was almost nothing this company got right. On more than one occasion, I was able to manage things more quickly and efficiently from another country than Brownstone Management could do from two neighborhoods over. Requests had to be made over and over because they were either forgotten or completely misunderstood. Sometimes I just hired our old handyman to do things so I wouldn’t have to deal with them, and yet we were paying them hundreds of dollars each month to «manage» our building. I tried for a full ten months to get one straightforward repair done. After pulling teeth to get an estimate, in the end they simply couldn’t finish the job before we changed companies. This after I had spent countless hours, from December ’13 to September ’14, trying to get them to address the issue.
My blood pressure used to skyrocket every time I saw an email from them. No more. Please spare yourself the agony of dealing with this company.

Overall in the past few months, I have had a good experience with Brownstone as a management company. They have been responding to emails in a timely manner. With the recent snow, our stoop and sidewalk have been shoveled and salted quickly. Alex, one of the newer members to the staff, is very responsive, friendly, and professional when scheduling repairs. He is definitely a welcome and positive addition to the team. He seems very organized and always follows up. The man who has done our repairs (I believe his name is also Alex) is very professional, friendly and detail oriented.
Our building can definitely use some very basic painting and renovating, but I don’t believe that is a reflection of, or a decision that can be made by the management company.

We have had a very good experience with Brownstone as the managing agent for our brooklyn 40 plus unit cooperative. Larry is super responsive, resourceful and a generally nice guy. Honestly they are one of the best mgt I have had over the past 15 years. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them.

Do not deal with these people. Reading through prior reviews, I had to laugh, because the word that comes up again and again is «pricks,» and they certainly are pricks.
Their prices are exorbitant, which might lead you to believe they have extensive experience dealing with the ordinary issues that arise for landlords who own one or two investment apartments.
Not so. In confronting a problem tenant, Josh told me that he had never dealt with this kind of issue before. It was a run-​of-​the-​mill tenant dispute. I was shocked.
I can honestly say that I shelled out over a thousand dollars for nothing. The only time Josh was attentive was when he was demanding more money.
I ended up doing most of the work myself, and even then, Josh tried to squeeze out more money, and had to gall to ask me to consider him to represent me in a future sale.
Stay away.

I have been dreading getting my wood floors stripped and poly-​ed. I didn’t want the dust and the hassle and was worried about the quality of the job. After seeing the quality of their work in a friends apartment, I decided to give Brownstone a shot.
Brownstone did an excellent job. We had a tight schedule since we had to pay to stay in a hotel while the job was running. Robin at Brownstone made sure the team stuck to the schedule. Alex, the floor master at Brownstone, is an artist. Our wood floors were in terrible shape and now they are gleaming. I highly recommend Robin and Alex for a wood floor fix in Brooklyn.
Once the floors were done, we realized we needed a new, brighter pendant light installed to compliment the floors. Robin sent over Dimitri, Brownstone’s electrical guy, and got our fixture hung up right away.
Construction work in Brooklyn has a tendency to drag on and cost too much. The team at Brownstone is efficient and affordable.

we had to call too many times to remind them to do their job, «sanitation expenses» are tremendously expensive compared to what they actually do.
in short, there are other services that are easier to work with and don’t gauge you on fees on the back end.