Newton Centre Associates

Very unprofessional, unresponsive. Ignored calls and emails.
I’m seeing his responses to comments below where other people said the exact same thing, and claims to have been «busy,» so I can tell this is not a one-​time situation and is clearly a bad practice of his. When he finally wrote me back to apologize for being «busy» we had since rented an apartment, but I felt pretty disrespected. I understand businesses get busy, but common courtesy and responding to communication are really basic customer service skills that any professional should have.
If you can not handle your email/​client load to the point where you can’t even respond to an email, then it would be prudent to readjust your business model. Maybe hire an assistant, customer service person.

I was hopeful we would find something via Mike and this agency. Twice he was going to show us a place. Then hours before the showing, he canceled because the apartment was taken. Fine, that happens. He promised to follow up as soon as he had something to show. I checked in with him four days later to see if anything had come up before the weekend we could view. No response. In fact, I haven’t heard from him since ⁶⁄₁₇. Luckily, I found a more responsive agent, we’ve since found an apartment via her.

Basically I haven’t been able to get this guy to email me or call me. I contacted him about a Craigslist posting and he sent me an email asking a bunch of questions about what I was looking for which I responded to right away, then I never heard back from him. After he reposted the same apartment on Craigslist a week or so later, I contacted him again to *remind* him that I was still interested in that apartment. He emailed me back apologizing for the delay and asked if I was available to see it on a certain day, again I responded right away saying yes I was, and gave him my telephone number in case that was *easier*. It’s now two days past the day he wanted to show it to me, and I still haven’t heard from him.

What a cool realtor. We didn’t end up renting any of the places that they listed, but probably would have if someone else hadn’t beaten us to the one we really liked. I dealt with Mike, who is the self-​described «owner, President, CEO, Big Guy, HeadCheese» of the company and is really, really nice.
After seeing some listings on Craigslist for apartments, I emailed the address included in the ad… and didn’t get a reply. So I called to ask about them, and found that much more useful. In general I learned that it is better to call than email a realtor, since they run around so much they’re rarely at a desk. Still, for a business dealing so heavily with Craigslist, I think a better email response would be beneficial. Not everyone likes or is willing to deal with phones, especially if they’re apartment hunting on the sly at work, like me.
After making an appointment for a Saturday afternoon, we met Mike at the office in Newton Center (right next to the T!) and he described the places we’d be seeing. He also gave us a really useful map of Newton, which is a huge town, and that helped us narrow down the «villages» we were looking for. I noticed that he was only showing us cheaper places, perhaps because the original ad I called about was for a pretty cheap apartment. I told him our price range went higher than that and he was flexible enough to add another, more expensive place to the list of units we’d be viewing that day.
All three apartments we saw were really nice. We liked them all, but one had no laundry (a deal-​breaker) and one was really cute but smaller than we wanted. The third one was a big 2 BR with a glorious kitchen and huge living area… I’m still a little sad that someone else rented it before we could (we didn’t make up our minds fast enough, and by the next weekend it was gone). Mike knew all about each apartment he showed us and actually lived in one of the houses we looked at, so he was able to give lots of information and answer all our questions.
I’d definitely recommend NCA to anybody looking for a place in Newton or the surrounding towns. They don’t seem to always have a ton of listings, but based on the places we saw I’d say that they look for quality rental units, and the customer service can’t be beat. Compared to some of the other crappy realtors we had to deal with during this process, speaking to someone so friendly and helpful was a breath of fresh air.