Avery Associates

This is by far the worst management company I’ve ever dealt with. Particularly Andrea Whitcomb. And this was almost a year ago and I still remember this woman’s name. If only I remembered half the stuff that made dealing with them a nightmare. Here’s I remember:
— Completely non-​responsive to phone calls and rude in person.
Example: I called 30ish times in a row on my commute home one afternoon (I know that’s excessive, but I knew they never answer and had been waiting to hear back from them for a month). I walked over to the storefront when I got home. She was in the office, and it had just gotten past the closing hour, so I waited outside to speak to her. She let me wait for a solid 5 minutes… Anyway it ended up in her yelling at me and I told her I had been waiting for the past 4 weeks to hear back from her about a lease termination.
— We had already paid the half month’s rent fee for lease termination (despite being liable for the rent if they do not find a new renter). You can pay the lease termination fee, and if they don’t find someone to rent it out then you still have to pay the rent… so what is the point of the fee? Especially when I did most of the search for applicants.
— Every tenant that we found while searching for replacements was denied, supposedly because they went through us (no fee) rather than the real estate agents.
— They told us the rent was going to increase for the next tenants, if we could find replacements. They ended up accepting someone through the real estate agent office, and after speaking to her, we learned she ended up paying something like $ 200 more per month than the rent increase they quoted us originally.
— Overall just completely non-​responsive to phone calls and emails throughout the entire time we did business with them. The daughter/​niece was much better to deal with when you could get her attention. And our real estate agent was also good.
— They promised we could move in a day early if we paid $ 500. The old tenants were out for about month before we moved in. They dodged our calls for a month (after paying them) when we were trying to schedule a meet to get the keys.
As others have noted, the customer service at Comcast is almost better than this place.

If I could give them negative stars I would. From first day we rented our apartment to the last they were unhelpful. The first day we moved in they were late and did not have the correct paper work. Our air conditioning unit was pouring out water and they waited to send someone out. When they did send someone out to fix it they didn’t and the problem happened again. The water damage got so bad part of the ceiling fell. They then sent someone over to fix it and they left a hole in our ceiling for about 5 days. After countless emails and phone calls they said it was all set and that night I got home from work and the hole was still in the ceiling. They told me the man who said it was finished is no longer with them. When moving out a girl called to tell me she was mailing out my security deposit and it never came. I called 30 days after we had moved out and they said oh we just found your security deposit on her desk. Shes been out sick we don’t know why she didn’t mail it. After telling them this was unacceptable I got transferred to three different people and finally got them to agree to overnight me my security deposit. they told me i had to be home to sign for it. After wasting a day at home waiting for a check that never came. Would never recommend living in a building that they manage.

Add us to the list of dissatisfied customers, and we’re not even in our apartment yet. I would give them zero stars if I could.
We signed a lease on ⁷⁄₁₄ for a ⁹⁄₁ move-​in. We explained to them through the process that we had a condo fire, have been transient since May, got scammed online out of $ 2600 trying to rent an apartment, and just want some stability in our lives. We requested to get the countersigned lease as soon as possible, since we don’t have anything in writing in case they decided to rent the apt to someone else. Just give us peace of mind and a copy of the countersigned lease.
Through our broker, they said they would do it, they said they would do it within 15 days, they said they would do it in a day recently, and still haven’t. They also have repeatedly reminded our broker they have 30 days per Massachusetts law to return a countersigned lease. Yes, I understand that is the law. How about customer service?
I work in the South End and could stop by their office any day that a completed lease was done. I am sure that in the last 17 days they could have gotten it signed by whomever needs to sign it and made it available, but apparently they don’t really care about customer service.

On the other side of things, as an out-​of-​state property owner, I would absolutely not recommend them to anyone but my worst enemy. They do not respond to emails. They do not answer phone calls. They deduct money from our income without an explanation and do not respond when you ask why. Two months in a row there have been deductions for appliance repairs with no detail as to which appliance (s) required repair and why.
In order to get an answer from them one time, I actually had to take time to stop into their office during a short trip to Boston to confront them. I had one day in the city and had to spend part of it trying to get an answer from them. Ever since, I still cannot get a response from them for anything.
I would absolutely not recommend working with them.

I didn’t have any issues with Avery until I let them know I wasn’t going to renew my lease (I should stress that the reason I decided not to renew my lease was not because I didn’t like the apartment or location… it was because the rent was going to increase $ 250/​month, and after crunching the numbers, I determined that that was more than I could afford). All of a sudden I felt like they began treating me like a bad tenant. There was no reason for this, as I always paid my rent on time. I knew they were going to give my cell phone number to the real estate office next door, so they could call me when they had apartment showings scheduled. However, Avery also gave my number to other agencies, without letting me know first. To make it worse, they told at least 1 agency my name is Karen, instead of Katie. There’s no excuse for that. That’s a slap in the face.

This is really a zero star review for the management. How terrible they are is incomprehensible, but I will try to put it in words.
–Management refuses to pick up the phone. Ever. Only the 24hr maintenance line will pick up and ever do something about it. Calling during the day is a waste of your time. You might as well just repeatedly bang your head into the wall. I have called well over two dozen times and NOBODY has answered. I’ve even tried calling multiple times a day and no response. We can get real time images from MARS and I can’t get a call back from an office not two miles away.
–Management refuses to return a phone call. Ever. Fairly certain they either have no idea how to check their voicemail or just ignore it. That red blinking light indicates something or that little number that is at 10 294 801 905 982 over the little «voicemail» on your phone means something.
–Issues with parking spaces have never been resolved in 8 months and my car is basically trapped in the space. Now, I will admit I don’t use my car very often and that is because I can’t.
-(This one reflects on the owners too) — People leave their dog poop in the back entrance. IN BAGS. Nobody picks it up or cleans it and Avery refuses to do anything about these pets.
In sum, customer service at Comcast is almost better, at least they’re responsive when trying to screw you. YES, COMCAST. Impossible to get them to do anything. James Cameron couldn’t touch the depth of this incompetence in his submarine.
The night maintenance squad is alright.

I wish 0 stars were an option. This company is nothing but head aches. They are so unprofessional. I have been living in an Avery property for over a year and if I didn’t love my apartment i would absolutely move. First of all, they NEVER answer their phones. If you leave a message, don’t expect a call back. After a year of living in the apartment, it was time to resign the lease but one of us was moving out and someone else was moving in. We called and explained this and they told us to just take the third roommate off the lease and then when we knew who was moving in, they would add her to the lease, free of charge. When we found someone, they said they were going to charge us ½ month’s rent (almost $ 1500) just to add her name to the lease because technically we were breaking our lease and starting a new one. Mind you, this all took place WAY before september 1 when our lease would start. After many angry phone calls and unreturned emails, we finally decided to just pay the fee (the owner of our building thought this was ridiculous so he offered to pay half for us and when we told Avery this they finally waived the fee after weeks of asking) so we made an appointment to go sign the lease. We get there and the person we made the appointment with wasn’t there and neither was the lease so we had to come back the next day. We came back the next day and signed the lease only to receive a phone call an hour later that he forgot to have us initial the first page so we’d have to go back a third time. When we complained to the manager about this, she was extremely rude to us.
Bottom Line: they charge you a fee for EVERYTHING. They are completely unresponsive and unhelpful and if you ever get them on the phone, they will likely yell at you.

Edit — Updated from below.
They did finally replace our carpet, 5 months after we moved in. Around the same time, they sent us a utility bill that was (according to the lease) not our responsibility to pay. After a few weeks of calling, that eventually went away. On the positive side, they have a new hire who is more responsive, but on the whole it’s still sub-​par.
Add my wife and I to the list of unsatisfied customers. Avery has been sloppy or just plain incompetent at every single opportunity. The specific occasions that they have screwed up include the following:
— On move-​in day, they did not tell us our parking space numbers, so we spent a 24 hours parked in the wrong spots. When we called to ask, they said «We’re too busy to look that up right now.» It took an in person visit to have someone open the file and read two numbers two us — a 5 second task (this is a common theme).
— They gave us one garage door opener for two spots, and it took 5 phone calls for someone to actually locate the second opener, and another in person visit to get it.
— A large window had a major crack (diagonal all the way through) when we moved in. It took a month for them to replace it, and when they came they had actually ordered the wrong size. Three weeks later, they showed up on a day we told them not to come (we gave them 4 options) to finally replace the window.
— The wall-​to-​wall carpet was heavily damaged by the previous tenant. They ensured us it would be replaced right after we moved in. Not only is it stained, but they stupidly cut a «sample» section right at the top of the stairs. This means it is both dirty AND has a whole in it. Every time we call or ask for an update, they tell us they are working on it, the owner has to make a decision, and they will call us back, etc. They never follow up when promised.
My overall experience is that you should assume they are completely incompetent and useless, do everything yourself, record every interaction with them, and expect everything to take 3 – 5 times longer than it should.
I would avoid them at all costs. We had a good experience with Gibson-Sotheby’s, but due to the terrible nature of Avery, I would not recommend them either.

We lived in an apartment managed by Avery Property Management (they changed their name from Avery Associates about a year ago) for three years. The experience was nothing but horrific.
Similar to a previous review, after one year of renting they tried to increase our rent by $ 250… for absolutely no reason! They were not renovating or updating anything, it was the heart of the recession in 2009, and if anything the rent should have gone down because the conditions of the place only got worse. We spent months trying to figure out why. We went in to talk to Andrea, the boss lady at Avery, and she was a beast. I have never in my life encountered such a rude, cruel, and insensitive person. I walked out of her office in tears. (We had to deal with her once before when we moved in, and both times she never even looked away from her computer to address us. She just does not care about other people.) We eventually found the owner’s information online, and after contacting him he had no idea that Avery was jacking up the rent. They were going to pocket the money! Because we could not pay the new rent, they were basically pushing us out of our home. It was completely absurd and stressful. We think the owner contacted Avery, because a week later they called us with apologies and increased the rent by only $ 25. By that point their pathetic apologies were too late.
In response to Scott L’s review on 8÷24÷09, every single one of those things happened to us too: the common areas were cleaned once every few months (it was disgusting); and the apartment was filthy when we moved in. The walls looked like they hadn’t been painted in 10 years, there were mouse traps, the floors were nasty, etc.
I can give you many other reasons why Avery sucks, but this would be the longest review ever written. I just suggest that you avoid renting a home through Avery Property Management, and if you do rent from them, make sure you realize what they are capable of. It’s not pretty.

These people are borderline CRIMINALS. Absolutely the worst property managers that exist. All of the units they manage are rented out by Gibson Sotheby’s, so watch out. When we first moved in we were promised our unit would be cleaned and ready to go; it was absolutely filthy with mouse traps scattered about the apartment. No cleaning, no paint, tough sh*t was their mentality. We paid 1 full month of rent ($ 1900) as a «Finder’s Fee» to Gibson Sotheby’s to rent our apartment with the intention of staying in the unit for a few years. After 1 year of renting they attempted to increase our rent from $ 1900 to $ 2150 without cause (meanwhile we were in the middle of a massive recession in early 2009). They bully you and take advantage while threatening to keep your rental deposit. Honestly this was the WORST experience I’ve ever had with a property manager and I’ve been renting apartments for the last 11 years.

As one of the building trustee, I found Avery Associates is extremely professional. Our building had experienced poor management firm and our condo fees continue to go up until 2 years ago we found Avery. They respond all calls and issues in timely manner; budget correctly and continue find the best way to save our expenses and cost. Recently, our building insurance also gone down and we finally see our building has positive income; we thanks for Avery. We fully trust their expertise and profession. If you looking for a new management company manage your building? I fully recommend Avery.

The employees at this company are the most incompetent, disgusting, rude, shady, useless people I have ever dealt with. I have NEVER in my life had so much trouble with a management company. They avoid phone calls, hang up on you, route your calls to voicemails you didn’t ask for.
They also waste the time of real estate agents by consistently giving them the wrong information on the current state of the apartments. My roommate and I just signed a lease this week and there are still agents showing up because they were told the apartment was empty.
Avoid at all costs. Nothing but amoral animals.

For me what’s important in a property manager is that they are 1) close by in case of emergencies 2) quick to respond to maintenance issues 3) friendly /​polite. I lived in the South End and the Avery office was a 5 minute walk away, which was convenient when I would lock myself out or needed to stop by with questions. All maintenance issues were handled promptly and politely.
Andrea, Joe and the rest of the staff were very helpful the 2 years I lived in an Avery apartment and I would recommend them to others without a doubt.

I would have to agree with every negative post so far… Absolutely the WORST management company you can get! Unfortunately many of their properties are tied to Gibson & Sotheby’s Realty (who have some of the best properties in the South End).
I know many reading these posts might think we’re all over-​reacting… I assure you this is not the case. Just for a little prospective with a previous landlord I went without heat for two weeks in February, and that landlord was better than the incompetence you will find at avery.
If you think for starters that moving in two weeks after your official move in day is ok, having a hole in your ceiling for two months after a pipe broke upstairs, and having rats find their way into your apartment through said hole is great fun, please, by all means rent through Avery. Every communication I had with the staff seemed pleasant enough, but all the reassurances in the world cannot make up for the lack of actual work Just remember, you have been warned.
Due to the incompetence of this management company I cut out of my lease early. And yes, I ended up paying two rents for a few months, but I was much happier getting away from dealing with Avery. I couldn’t be happier with my new management company (Octagon Properties); the stark contrast between the two companies is staggering.

I do not understand how Avery Associates is still in business with the way they treat their tenants with such disregard and lack of professionalism. It’s possible that a management company could swindle both the landlords and tenants at the same time. Oh and by the way, they might be the landlord too in some cases. Our building is listed with the City of Boston as being owned by some company that has the same address as Avery. Sketchy! Unfortunately, in a big rental market like Boston, there are always people looking for a place to live, and there are always managers like Avery that take advantage of this fact.
I don’t expect all apartments in an old city to have state-​of-​the-​art appliances and living spaces renovated within the past five or even 15 years. However, when a tenant requests extremely reasonable repairs and maintenance requests, a good management company should never drag its feet! Guess what Avery Associates like to do in these types of situations? … Answer: Drag their concrete-​laden feet like a mafia informant at the bottom of the Meadowlands. When the hot water faucet in the kitchen started leaking, it was clearly time for a new fixture. Some plumber came in and did some black magic (tightened something), and sure enough, the faucet started malfunctioning again soon after. When water started leaking from the ceiling of the bedroom after the rainstorms in March, it took 2+ weeks for Avery to do anything only after the City of Boston’s Inspectional Services Department issued them a warning/​citation. Everyone should know their rights as tenants and know what the law says your landlord/landlord’s representatives need to provide to you:
And where do I even begin with customer service?! KC Huang has a short fuse and lacks the capacity to deal with people on the phone. She often gets flustered and frustrated with the tenant when presented with a problem or request for repairs. Andrea Whitcomb called us and told us not to call the City when repairs are needed in the apartment. Well, the only reason the City was called in was because Avery Associates doesn’t fix water leaks and other simple repairs in a timely and professional manner!
STAY AWAY FROM AVERY ASSOCIATES! TELL YOUR FRIENDS, TELL YOUR COWORKERS, TELL YOUR ACQUAINTANCES, TELL YOUR ENEMIES, TELL YOUR MAILMAN, TELL YOUR BIKINI WAXER, TELL YOUR MECHANIC, TELL YOUR DOG, TELL EVERYONE THAT AVERY ASSOCIATES IS TERRIBLE!

We had terrible experiences with this company over 3 years and would not do business again with them.
The unit we were in was very nice and we paid the rent early each month (we should note). But Avery consistently didn’t respond to phone calls, or do repairs, or clean the building, or treat us as customers. They treated us more like annoyances. They were consistently rude and pushy, at several times yelling at us and others in our building.
Example 1: Our buzzer stopped working and Avery still had not repaired it 4 months and 4 phone calls later. Their excuse was that «it wasn’t a code violation» (their exact words) so they did not have to repair it. They said the building’s owner was hard to reach and he had to authorize repair. 4 months later it still wasn’t repaired and Avery didn’t let us know what was going on. Their tone throughout the call was patronizing, rude, and snappy.
Example 2: When renewing our lease in 2007, Avery asked for $ 200 more a month in rent and when I asked the building owner about it (I know him) he said that he had not asked for more rent. Even after I told this to Avery it was reluctant to roll back its request for $ 200 more a month. It eventually did. But its money grab felt sleazy to me.
Example 3: The worst is that the new renters of our unit wanted to move in at least 4 weeks early and Avery wouldn’t allow it. We had moved out and we wanted to sublet for a month to the new tenants before their year lease began. The new tenants were staying in expensive temporary housing and wanted to move in early too. No one could convince Avery to allow it. This cost us at least $ 2,400. The new tenants had to live in expensive temporary housing while our unit sat vacant because Avery was inflexible.
Example 4: Avery claimed that it was contracting a company to clean the common hallways every 2 weeks. But 2 – 3 months would pass without a cleaning — especially in Winter when things get really dirty. When cleaned, the hallways looked like someone had dragged a mud rag around the floor.
Example 5: Avery did not prepare our unit before we moved in (no painting, cleaning, sweeping) nor anyone else’s for the 3 years we lived there. Tenants would move in, see garbage piled in their unit and old abandoned furniture left behind.
Example 6: Avery mailed and hand delivered letters to everyone in our building saying that items were being placed on fire escapes and we would be fined if it continued. I called and said we had nothing on the fire escapes. Avery agreed and said the letter was meant for someone else in the building. I asked them why the other tenants in the building had to waste time calling Avery or being concerned when we had nothing to do with it.
Our overall impression of Avery is that it puts in no visible effort, dodges requests for ordinary repairs and has poor follow-​through. We would definitely avoid this company.

I feel like I have to update this based on new information that has come to light in my dealings with Avery and their actions since my last post. I have come to find out that most of the problems we experienced were, at least in part, due to the carelessness and poor management of the FORMER managing party, who is now on his way out. The new managing partner, once she found out the trouble we were having, sent over a whole new set of bathroom linens – mats, towels, washcloths – to replace the mat and towel that had been ruined by the plumbers. With that set, she also sent a note apologizing for all that we had been through and also gave us a substantial gift card to the Aquitaine Group of restaurants. She even contacted our broker to find out if he could think of anything she could do to make it up to us. Since this all occurred, we have had no problems. They call each time they send someone over to repair things (which has been frequent as the building is dealing with substantial plumbing issues) and have been very courteous to us. Perhaps Avery is turning a corner. I’d like to think so.

i am renting a place managed by Avery. Granted, I have only been here a couple of months, and I have not needed to break or change a lease — but my experience so far has been nothing but pleasant. When at their office for the application signing, Andrea was very nice to me. There were some issues that needed to be tended to once I moved in and Megan in their office was nothing but communicative and accommodating.
Like I said, I know I haven’t had complex needs from Avery, but so far so good. The only reason I am giving only 3 stars is b/​c not much time has passed. If /​when I am no longer dealing with them, more then likely I will update the rating based on the overall.

HORRIBLE. RUDE. CONNIVING.
Language in their lease agreement is dangerously vague in areas (trust me, my lawyer combed over it and Avery is indeed very tricky). We found someone to sublet our apartment because they wouldn’t allow us to simply pay a break lease fee. They told a couple that they had the apartment, gave them a lease agreement to sign and then less than an hour later, called them to say it was going to someone else. When all was said and done, our «subletters» are paying substantially more than our rent was.
Everyone who works there is rude, hateful and patronizing — yelling over the phone and even hanging up on me mid-​sentence.
You are officially forewarned.

Ok, so do you want to know how bad they suck???
The repair company that they use to «fix» plumbing issues/​rodent issues/​etc… WILL NOT CALL YOU BACK until at least the 3^rd call.
Even if you have a rotting dead mouse under your stove… Trust me, I know.
They also will rudely try to schedule a viewing of your apt. with less than 24 hours notice (oh, don’t get me started)
Anyway if this is who manages your property… LOOK OUT. Especially Andrea Whitcomb … pure unadulturated evil… unscrupulous business practices, and no interpersonal skills… that sounds like someone you want running your management company, right?