JP Rentals & Sales

After receiving a message from Rachael, I am updating my review to a higher stars and to be more positive. The fact that she reached out to me after me posting my review is a sign that they care about their customers.
I think that Rachael did a good job with finding apartments that were in safe areas for my roommates and I, and we are grateful for what she did for us.

I recently moved from New York to Boston and Elizabeth was instrumental in helping me find a great apartment. Before the actual move, I planned a 3-​day visit to Boston to try to find a place, arriving late on Sunday night and leaving Wednesday evening. I had scheduled an appointment with Elizabeth for the morning after I arrived arrived. Elizabeth was very pleasant and helpful over the phone. But when I got near the first apartment she was to show me, she called and said that she had the days mixed up and that she couldn’t show the apartment until Wednesday. Additionally, she couldn’t show me anything else that day. Well, because of this epic screw up, I decided to wander around JP for a while, eventually walking in to Unlimited Sotheby’s International Realty without an appointment. There, I met Gioulianna Dimitri, who listened to what I was looking for and found me a great place. So thanks Elizabeth for breaking our appointment so that I could find someone else!

Updated:
Almost immediately after posting my 1-​star review I was contacted by the Office Manager to rectify my unfortunate experience. She was very friendly, kind and helpful. This was the courteous experience that I was expecting. She quickly set up a viewing and showed us two apartments that were great.
With just two experiences one terrible and one great, it’s hard to give a fair rating. Sadly, all I can do is average the two of them together. But I suspect that if you work with Rachel in the future, you’ll be satisfied.
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Original posting from 4÷30÷2015.
Terrible. Unprofessional.
I made an appointment with Taylor to see two apartments, one in Roslindale and then immediately afterwards another in JP. After waiting 20 minutes at our pre-​arranged location and numerous attempts to contact him, I finally got through to him on his cell phone. He had very obviously forgotten and was not in the area.
Total waste of my time. If you are going to allow amateurs to work for you, you should have a better vetting process. The utter lack of respect makes me question this real estate agency’s integrity.

I came in from out of town and worked with Rachael and Taylor in November to find a place in JP. I didn’t know the area at that point, so their familiarity with it was very helpful. Both Rachael and Taylor were very generous with their time, and they are clearly very enthusiastic about their work. Rachael also was very vocal about the fact that JP Rentals has many exclusive listings in the area, and I don’t doubt that (although the place I rented was also listed by other brokers). They definitely seemed to have their fingers on the pulse of the local rental market. They helped me find a great place, and I certainly will consider consulting them again if I need to move within JP.
That being said, I would suggest that clients be careful about making sure that they are on exactly the same page as Rachael and Taylor on important matters, as there were several instances of miscommunication when I was working with them. In each case I can’t say for sure who was to blame, but it nevertheless bears stating that Rachael and Taylor were very eager to please yet several requests weren’t honored and instructions weren’t followed. Examples:
— Because I was staying in Cambridge at the time and wasn’t sure how soon I would get back to JP, I filed an application for the apartment I was considering but said (I thought very clearly) that I would contact them the next day if/​when I was ready to pull the trigger and actually have them process the application. The next morning, I decided I couldn’t pull the trigger until I had seen the place in the daylight, so I asked Rachael to show it to me again. When I met up with her, she said that she had processed the application and talked to the landlord, and the deal was all but done. Thankfully that is the way I had been leaning, but this definitely wasn’t the course of action we had agreed upon the evening before. Had I changed my mind about the place after seeing it again, this could have led to a very costly situation.
— When I saw the place again in the daylight, I discovered how dirty it was, so I asked Rachael if she could tell the landlord I wanted it cleaned before I moved in. She said she would take care of that and even recommend cleaners to him. According to the landlord later (after I moved in and discovered it hadn’t been cleaned at all), Rachael merely said to him that it would be nice to have it cleaned (not that I had explicitly asked that it be cleaned).
— During my two visits to the place, Rachael took several pictures with her phone of things needing repair and said she would share these with the landlord. The landlord said he never received any such photos nor any indication that repairs were needed.
— During the lease signing, the landlord and I discussed a possible lease amendment. Rachael said they could help with that if we wanted to do it later. The landlord said that his emails to Rachel a couple of weeks later in which he asked for her help with this went unanswered, so he and I ended up just taking care of it amongst ourselves.
I can’t be sure how much of this was due to miscommunication on my part or misconstruing the situation on my landlord’s part, but the bottom line is that it pays to follow up (sometimes repeatedly) with JP Rentals on important issues if you want to make sure everything is done the way you asked for it to be. In the end, things worked out OK, but showing up on moving day to find a very dirty apartment that needed several repairs was neither the deal I thought I was signing on to nor the deal I had paid JP Rentals to negotiate. I certainly had expected a different outcome based on the energy, enthusiasm, and, for the most part, competent follow-​through Rachael and Taylor exhibited during the showing and lease-​signing stages.
Take-​home message: Definitely consider making use of JP Rental’s expertise and contacts, but make sure they have dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s before any contracts are signed.

Too many issues to list here, but trust me… you’re better off going someplace else.

Extremely easy to work with! Rachel was in touch with minute to minute details, which allowed us to get the house we wanted to rent when it came back on the market. I find that their website is always up-​to-​date and they have insider information about JP. They know the neighborhood well.

Not much to say. I do wonder if the positive reviews on here are made up based on my personal experience with this place. Communication between realtors and even landlords seems to be lacking in a big way.

Not a good experience.
My husband and I relocated to Boston and wanted to live in the JP neighborhood. JP Rentals came recommended to us, and they claim to be JP specialists.
No one responded to my initial email inquiry. I called the office later on and spoke with Rachel. It was a great phone conversation and I was really pumped for our appointment.
I found an adorable treetop unit on their website a few days later and called Rachel on her cell to ask about potentially securing it, as we weren’t visiting Boston for another week. Her voicemail promises to call back. She never called back. The unit went off market a few days later, before we got to Boston.
And then we got to the office, and it all derailed. First bad sign: it was extremely unprofessional. Junk and trash everywhere in a tiny little office does not make a good first impression. Second bad sign: Rachel was dressed in an ill fitting undergarment type shirt that revealed quite a bit of the real undergarments, in addition to other things sticking out of other places. Because it was «hot» outside. I was in a sweatshirt. She liked talking about how tired and busy she was. Boo hoo. It’s your job. Eventually she got dressed in front of us, and put her shirt on backwards.
Then we waited past our appointment time because a landlord showed up and had some apparently serious matter to discuss. That was fine and understandable.
Then we got into her car (as dirty as the office), experienced her insane driving, and went to view a hideous condo in Roslindale. Her access code didn’t open the lock box and she had a mini tantrum. We finally gained access. It was disgusting. The only thing she kept saying over and over was that the bathroom tiles were being replaced. Who cares. The place was a complete dump.
I asked if there was anything actually in JP and increased our price range, which we did not want to do, and she revealed a beautiful one bedroom in central JP. We stopped in later, after another viewing, to see it. We waited AGAIN for at least 20 minutes for her to get off the phone with ANOTHER landlord «emergency». Then she insisted on going to 7 – 11 for beef patties. So we walked to 7 – 11. For her beef patty fix. Professional?
Then we saw the unit outside of our price range. It was HUUUGE. Easily a large two bedroom in a three family home. She didn’t offer any opinions or thoughts about the place. Just stalked around with us from room to room, not letting us talk in private. The unit did not at all fit our search criteria and she did not disclose any of this (except for the price) before we made yet another trip to JP to see it.
There was overall zero effort on her part to find us something in our actual price range, in the requested area, and to make any effort to put forth a professional persona. Remember renters, you are giving these people a BROKER’S FEE. They should WORK for it. And the best part? We viewed units with Boston City Properties (excellent experience) the following day, and saw a unit in downtown JP that was appropriately sized, very adorable, and close to our max price. JP specialists? Doubt it. I would never consider using JP Rentals again, nor would I recommend them. You do not need their «expertise» to get an apartment in JP.
My husband wants to give them zero stars.

My girlfriend and I started our search for an apartment at JP Rentals because of the overwhelmingly positive reviews on Unilocal.We were hoping to secure a unit for September without having to go the Craigslist route and without having to go through the sort of uninterested, dispassionate realtor that we imagined we’d find at one of the bigger realty companies.
The JP Rentals website makes it clear that they don’t receive many units for September until June or July, but we thought we’d drop by the main office and introduce ourselves anyway. We were greeted by Rachael, who at the time seemed like she’d be a wonder to work with. She reiterated the lack of September postings until early and mid-​summer, but said that they did get some in every so often before then, and that they were expecting a house in our price range (which wasn’t high, but it certainly wasn’t low) the following week. She assured us that they’d find us something if we stuck with them. The red flag was that not only did they make it clear that WE should be the ones to contact them from then on, but that we should probably just email or call instead of stopping by.
I inquired about the house they were expecting and was told that it didn’t go on the market after all. They didn’t have anything to show us, but said to «check the website daily,» as they were starting to receive more and more units to advertise. I finally saw an apartment that looked great and definitely fit my budget. I contacted JP Rentals immediately and was told that we could tour it later that week along with another house. The day came to tour, and I received an email from Rachael saying that she wasn’t able to get the keys to the place we were interested in and that the kitchen was but a nook anyway, and that we were still on to tour the other apartment. We toured the apartment with Dave, who seemed in a bit of a rush but was friendly enough, and we mentioned the apartment we had originally wanted to view. He immediately goes on about how small the kitchen is, and that it wasn’t even worth viewing (echoing Rachael’s email). We see later that night that a lease was pending. Why they couldn’t just tell us this, I don’t know, but it definitely left a bad taste.
A couple days later, we’re back in the office to tour another apartment (that of course we inquired about), and we end up applying. This was a mistake on our end, and I understand why JP Rentals may have been frustrated with us; Dave basically said we weren’t candidates «unless we had a trust fund» but he let us apply anyway because we insisted, but then we withdrew our application the next morning because, yes, we realized it was financially untenable (or at least irresponsible). It was embarrassing, but then, I never felt as though I was being taken seriously in the first place.
I sent a lengthy apology and said that I’d like to continue working with them, but by this point my girlfriend suggested we go elsewhere because the way they treated us seemed a bit condescending (Rachael practically stopped even saying hello when we would go in), as though we were wasting their time even before we actually (admittedly) did. Dave responded saying it was fine and that they’d continue to work for us. They didn’t. Rachael and Dave failed to respond to one or two emails asking about listings on the site, and that’s when I gave up on JP Rentals.
I went to Prudential — one of the bigger realtor companies that we dreaded getting involved with — and within a week we had a place nicer than any of the places JP Rentals showed us and one completely within our price range. Basically, we got the small realtor company service from one of the bigger guys, which was a great surprise (our realtor seemed to genuinely care about us and was in constant but not intrusive contact with us from the start). For the few weeks I tried to work with JP Rentals, I forgot that customer service meant not only a reliable point of contact but one that the seller initiates when they find something that fits your criteria.

I was so excited when I read about this company on Unilocal.My husband and I are moving to Boston area this summer for his job and we were looking for an apartment in JP. Their website was cute and informative, and though they didn’t have many listings on the website at the time, the apartments they did have looked clean and updated. I contacted JP Rentals in late February/​early March because I wanted to get a head start on the search. The first three times I called the office (over the span of a few days), no one picked up. I sent a follow-​up email. No one responded. Finally, someone answered the phone. I gave her my information and our price range. She said that there would definitely be listings that fit our requirements and budget, and that she just needed to go through the database and would get back to me. She assured me that it was not too early to start looking for apartments in Boston in March or April.
Two weeks passed and no word from JP Rentals.
I finally called back to follow up. The same person, Rachel, answered the phone. I re-​introduced myself and asked if she had found any apartments that we could look at. She said that she had been so busy for the past few weeks and that this happened to be the first time she was back in the office since the first time we talked. She then said that there weren’t any listings that she could send us but that we just needed to wait it out a bit. She promised that she would be in touch soon.
More time passed and I didn’t receive a call back. I kept looking at the listings on the website, getting more annoyed as more listings showed up for the summer and I heard nothing from them. We finally saw an apartment that we loved, and I texted the person at JP Rentals because I hadn’t had much luck reaching her over the phone (and because she had said «Call me, text me anytime!»), asking a question about the listing. She responded with a half-​sentence. Hopeful that this was the best means of communication, I texted another question, and received no response.
Long story short, we gave up on JP Rentals and found another agent. It’s too bad, because they do have some cute apartment listings. I had high hopes because of their other great ratings.
Note: I am upgrading their rating to 3 stars from 2 because they called me to apologize immediately after they saw this review. We already found an apartment but I appreciate the gesture.

I have rented from many agencies in the past and have never been met with such incompetence and ineptitude in my life. To begin, when we first went to view the apartment the realtor did not have keys and attempted to blame the confusion on the office intern (we stood in the rain for 20 minutes while the realtor stood there with a blank look). There was no one home so we wasted our time. She didn’t even attempt to contact the landlord. After this it took over a week to set up another appointment. The realtor was unbelievably unresponsive via email and refused to take any responsibility for their lack of organization. Finally we were able to get into the apartment and liked it. I dropped off my application and deposit the next morning to secure the apartment only to find out the next day the landlord had rented the apartment to someone else outside of the agency.
It seems to me this agency was never in contact with the landlord and the landlord didn’t trust the agency to competently find a tenant.
Avoid this agency at all costs. They can’t be trusted at all.

I should have written this review years ago, but late is better than never, right?
I LOVE JP Rentals. My wife & I have found our last two places through them and they’ve been an absolute pleasure to work with. Their personalities are definitely part of the charm! :)
Our first rental with them (a nice 1 bed/​1 bath condo near Green St) was so great that we stayed for 3 years and only moved when our landlord decided to sell the place. Now we’re in a single-​family in Rosi that isn’t quite so updated and fabulous, but gives us a yard and an enormous amount of living space for two people with a grand piano and two cats. A pretty good trade off!
JP Rentals always goes above and beyond, helping out with issues even *after* the lease is signed. They remember the people they rent to even when years go by without seeing them and they always have the best places in JP. We love them and will certainly be back whenever we need to move again!

Valerie Schechter is the reason why Jamaica Plain remains to be a community of good people that operate on positive energy, a love of life and a healthy sense of humor. We all know that finding a new place to live is a drag. Valerie injects honest to god pleasantness into it. Not only is she a hoot, but she is on top of things like a consumate professional should be.
Thanks to her we found our first apartment in JP from Martha’s Vineyard! Now, years later, we can properly thank her again for taking the time to; FIRST– make our acquaintance and get to know us and what we were looking for — SECOND– remember us years later when we returned for help again– and, THIRD– go out of her way to help us find exactly what we were looking for. What better business model is there??? …and she brought coffee and munchkins. As a public high school educator, I have propriety and personal investment in the work I do and certainly appreciate and celebrate someone else like Valerie who clearly does as well.

I’m honestly surprised JP Rentals gets such good ratings. I’ve been looking for a rental situation and I’ve made numerous requests for viewings, both via e-​mail and leaving voice mails. I’ve yet to receive a reply. Oddly, the voicemail message states that they *know* how important it is to talk to a live person, so they ask you to call *another* number. How about just checking your voicemail, folks! Twice now I’ve called one number, left a message, then called the other number, left a message there as well, and yet heard NOTHING.
UPDATED
Apparently the Trulia website has had bogus listings linked to JP Rentals. Perhaps Craigslist had one as well. The owner contacted me personally. I updated the review. I can’t say 4 Stars because I’m not «a Fan».

I highly recommend Joe Pendarvis of JP Rentals. My boyfriend and I were looking for apartments and we had a tight budget to work with. Joe was definitely the best realtor we worked with: friendly, relaxed, personable, honest, accommodating and completely willing to work with the budget we had. This is far more than I can say of our other realtors I met. I didn’t end up signing a lease with him, but only because we changed our mind about what part of town we wanted to live in. Joe went above and beyond his call of duty, in my opinion, by speaking frankly about the real estate market in Boston and even driving around, showing us parts of JP we were unfamiliar with.

Seriously? not only did JP Rentals bait and switch my friends and I on craigslist, they then upsold us, and then were so hard to get a hold of that we had to chase them down to deliver a check. To add insult to injury, we were unable to agree on a drop off time for keys, so had to pick ours up from a rock beneath their front porch.
I’m glad my rental fee went to something. I’m just not sure what it was.
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After a call from the owner and an explanation of the situation, I’ve raised my rating to three-​stars.

I am a landlord, and let me tell you, it ain’t easy. I never wanted to be a landlord, but circumstances were such that I had to rent the place out instead of selling it. The first year of renting, I used craigslist, which worked fine, but the process of vetting applicants, showing the apt, etc. was extremely time consuming and a little stressful. But when I tried on my second year, the place just wouldn’t rent. I assumed it was my asking price and lowered it significantly. I finally threw up my hands and called JP Rentals – they rented the place out in 2 weeks and got me more than I had originally asked before I lowered the rent! I believe they just cast a wider net and know how to sell! I hardly needed to lift a finger – they took care of everything. Ah… more time on my hands and less stress!
Now, as it turns out, I am having some problems with the tenants – and this was nothing JP Rentals could have caught so I don’t blame them at all. The amazing thing is that Valerie is still there for me AFTER they have moved in and THROUGH these problems, going so far as to call them, etc. She made it clear from the get-​go that she would be there for me throughout the process, no matter what and that our relationship did not end at the signing of the lease. She has really gone to bat for me and is a lifesaver. I am sure we’ll work everything out with the current tenants but I don’t know what I’d do without JP Rentals to help me navigate these sometimes tricky waters.
Here and there along the way, there were some small errors by the office – they forgot to mail a form to my tenants so I had to come and pick it up and forgot to give them keys (they instead got their keys from my previous tenants – no big deal), but these were really small missteps that don’t detract from the overall amazing experience I’ve had there. I am never going solo again! Bye bye craigslist!

I enjoy surfing craigslist for real estate.
It’s a strange hobby.
But I like looking at available apartments in the area, seeing what they are going for, etc. I love looking at pictures of empty, clean apartments.
It’s all fun and games, til it comes time for me to actually find a place of my own to settle on.
With the end of my current lease fast approaching I began contacting various agents to set up showings of a few places.
THERE ARE SO MANY IRRESPONSIBLE, STUPID realtors in the Boston area. (No offense, but it’s true.) I wanted to work with someone who listens to what I’m looking for, is responsible and timely.
ENTER: Stephen of JP Rentals into my life.
Stephen embodies everything JP Rentals is about. He enjoys helping people. He’s not just in this for the money. JP Rentals cares about matching the right tenants with the right apartments and landlords. He was upfront and honest about all the pros AND cons of each place we considered. He was flexible and tried to accommodate our busy schedules. He made the process smooth and painless.
Another huge plus is that most of the employees LIVE in JP or nearby. It’s a testament to how much they love the area. I’m so fortunate to have such wonderful new neighbors!
I don’t plan on moving again any time soon.
But I would hang around the JP Rentals office for fun.
Don’t go anywhere else when you want to move to JP.
THANK YOU JP RENTALS! You have restored my faith in realtors.

The experience I had at JP Rentals was so incredibly excellent that I haven’t had to move since; this is rather extraordinary, as I had previously moved every, single year for five years straight. I’m about to sign my third lease at my place in Jamaica Plain, and I have to say, it feels like a personal record of sorts.
I’m not saying I have the best apartment in the world, but it is exactly what I was looking for. It’s accessible by T, relatively inexpensive, very spacious, on the top floor, and it has a huge, badass rear porch. I made all of these desires known when I walked into JP Rentals, and braces myself for what I got everywhere else: to be shown a few unaffordable, incredibly tiny dumps, with a realtor’s fee tacked on. What I got was what I wanted: value and a decent place to live. But I also got a little more than that. I got Elaine.
Elaine is, in addition to being honest and helpful, a pretty cool woman. She’s also known as the best real estate agent ever to live. She’s very petite, which somehow adds to her typical Bostonian, Dunkin Donuts loving, long cigarette smoking mystique. But I digress. The real reasons Elaine is #1 are concrete, numerous, and unforgettable.
My apartment had a half fee, which I could simply not afford. Elaine told me to «just forget about it.» Now, it’s not like my landlords ended up ponying up the dough; Elaine was willing to settle for half of her commission to help someone out. So that, in and of itself, is unusual and outstanding. But then, Elaine also haggled with my landlords big time, and got the monthly rent dropped considerably; and found out the average cost of the utilities in the building and reported them back to me before I signed the lease (her estimates were spot on). She even tries to put like-​minded people in the same building, so there’s a better shot you’ll actually like your neighbors.
I can’t promise that my experience is the standard operating procedure at JP Rentals – I feel like it was sort of a karmic payback for my previous rentals woes – but I do feel confident that if you call them up or stop by, they’ll listen to your needs, and you’ll never, ever be lied to.

When my girlfriend and I decided to move in together after like, 3 months of dating, we didn’t want to go through a broker. We just wanted to rent a place from the owner, so we looked through craigslist and found our dream place. But I accidentally searched all rentals instead of just by owner. So we called up JP Rentals.
They showed us an awesome place, but they also showed another couple the apartment at the same time. Awk! Luckily, the other couple decided they wanted a place closer to the Jeanie Johnston. Weirdos. The realtors were genuine, almost too real. They were honest and straightforward with us, which I appreciated. But I can see them making some folks uncomfortable, because they are kind of oddballs.
Sure, we had to pay them a fee, but we love our place. The rent is really reasonable, we are tight with our landlords and there’s no stupid management company. I’d go through them again, but hopefully our next relocation will be to the place that we buy. If you’re not ready for that, check these ladies out. They want you to find a place you love, that’s how they get paid.