Copley Group

Just moved in about a month ago and have had a great experience. The location is perfect, maintenance staff is very efficient and prompt, and I have nothing but good things to say about Joanne who takes care of any issue or question I have had. I have to say I am very satisfied!

Let me preface by saying I have not personally lived in one of the Copley Group’s residences, but my mother has, and I have been looped in on all of the rude, uncaring correspondences with them.
Sewage has now backed up into my mother’s apartment not once, but TWICE. Throughout the kitchen, in the dishwasher, all over the counter (ruining various appliances), and this last time there was so much it spilled out of the kitchen into the living room carpet as well. And remember, this isn’t just sink water we’re talking about… this is sewage.
Although the maintenance/​cleaning staff appears to have been nice and helpful (a big thanks to them), the actual property managers have been rude, defensive, and completely unhelpful from the get-​go. They refused to reduce rent or compensate my mother in anyway for the time she has had to spend out of the apartment (for obvious health/​safety reasons), and also refused to move her into another unit. Not only that, they are extremely unapologetic and act as if every renter should expect to have sewage poured into their homes twice in one month.
I do not usually like to post negative reviews about any type of establishment, as I prefer to deal directly with the company and see if they will be kind enough to sort things out on their own. However, as the Copley Group has been completely unhelpful, I want to be able to notify future renters in Boston of the troubles they may encounter should they rent with Copley. And, perhaps the Copley Group will read this and decide to treat their renters with more common decency and respect.

Pretty sure they paid these people to post nice things. I would NOT rent anything from this group. They are unresponsive and rude to their tenants.

Their apartments are so awesome that when I decided to move back to Fenway this summer, I insisted on going to Copley Group first to see what they have available. They did not disappoint and I found a gorgeous apartment!
However, they now charge a $ 600 realtor fee even when you rent through their rental office.
I also learned that you can rent out extra storage space from them in their buildings around the neighborhood starting around $ 40/​month, their rented parking space is not assigned, and their laundry machines now take pre-​loaded cards (no more visits to Shaws for rolls of quarters!).

While the apartments are large and spacious, quite a few of the the Copley Group staff are extremely rude and unprofessional people, particularly Karen Cipriani. They withhold information that they are required to give by law and refuse applicants without any reason and when they are refused they do not explain why, which is required by law. I got the feeling that they believe the are above the law because they own and rent so many apartments.
I do not recommend this rental agency and I will be filing a formal complain against them as a group as well as certain staff members like Karen. Beware.

Pros: Flat $ 500 realtor fee (not 1 month’s rent), friendly and helpful staff
Cons: Limited availably of units
I stopped by the Copley Group a couple of weeks ago to see if they had any 1 bedroom apartment units in Fenway. I met with Kyle McCrann who was friendly, attentive and helpful. I explained to him what I was looking for and he was able to pull up listings right away. In fact, he even had an apartment available for me to see. We walked over and saw the unit together and then further discussed other options.
Kyle was very honest with me in stating that the Copley Group currently did not have anything available at that time. He did end up following up with me a few days later when a unit became available and this unit happened to match exactly what I was looking for. My experiences at the Copley group have been pretty positive thus far.
The only disadvantage to working with the Copley Group is that they have very limited availability on apartment rentals. Therefore you may not find exactly what you are looking for. However if they do happen to have something, the $ 500 flat fee is totally affordable. Good luck with your apartment search :-)

«Luxury Living»??? WHAT A DUMP…
the 5-​star review is fake… David Pirog is an incompetent a-​hole…
AVOID AT ALL COSTS…

I am currently renting in the 195 Commonwealth Apt. Outside there is a sign ‘Luxury Condo’. My towel rack came off 2 months ago and I contacted management regarding this and every day I was told they will come tomorrow. Two months later, towel rack is still on the floor along with tiles that came off. There is nothing luxury about this living condition. All they care about is you paying your rent. They do not take any complain or repair seriously until I finally file a complaint on the Boston inspection services department. My lease is ending soon and there is absolutely no chance I will renew it.

I would say I NEVER have such a terrible experience living in their apartment. Very bad maintenance service. I requested replacing of a new door. It took me waiting for half of year to fix it. I really cannot believe it. Also, I got break-​in happening I slept during night. They don’t even care about just for a second. I try to call them asking about anything found from the surveillance monitor. Didn’t get any response from them.
I read about the first reviewer. Indeed, I also felt good as the first reviewer when I signed the lease. But after that, they didn’t give a damn care about you, instead of your pay check. So, be wise before you want to move in.

Wow. I’m usually a pretty tempered person, but this was the worst and most expensive apartment that I’ve ever lived in, and I’ve lived in four in various states. My wife and I moved in two years ago from out of state, mostly because it was the only leasing group that we could find in the Brookline/​Fenway area that would let us sign a lease 3 months early, the only time that we could visit the state.
Let me be clear: living here made our life in Boston subtly but measurably bad. The only thing that saved us were our good jobs.
Here are some experiences that we’ve had:
1. Mouse in the apartment. I was here when the exterminator came, a week after we had killed the mouse ourselves. He just glanced behind the kitchen sink, stuffed some gauze in a hole, and chatted with the Copley maintenance guy that he was with and left. Useless. Though I suppose we never had any more mice.
2. Rats on the street. Lots of them.
3. Every letter from Copley was written by someone who thought she was a lawyer. Needlessly sharply worded. Here’s an example:
«Whereas you have not signed a new lease for the above referred to premises, it is understood that you will vacate the same premises no later than [the day your lease expires]. Your apartment will be placed on our availability list… and our rental agents may begin showing the apartment [immediately]…»
4. The apartment wasn’t quite clean when we moved in. Rather than re-​state the reason, I’ll quote from the same letter that I quoted above:
«Should your apartment re-​rent, please be advised that the new residents may be picking up a new set of keys and moving into the apartment on [the day after your lease expires]. Please be sure that your apartment is broom swept and that all appliances are cleaned.»
5. No elevator, and we lived on the 4^th floor. At least we didn’t have anyone walking over us, but you can’t believe how aggravating those stairs have become. Carrying our groceries up. Walking to the basement to do our laundry. It’s these small things that, combined with the other gripes, make life hard.
6. The radiator system is from the stone age. When you contact maintenance about changing its temperature (in-​unit temperature control only does so much), they say something vague about needing to balance the pressures for the entire building, and say they’ll «look into» adjusting it. In the Fall, they don’t even turn it on until a month into the cold snap. In the Spring they turn the entire system off a month too early. During our first winter, when it was actually on it was *way* too hot and we had to keep our windows open. During our second winter, when it was actually on, it kept the apartment in the low 60’s and we had to keep our space heater on constantly to make the apartment livable. Constant calls to maintenance had little or no effect.
7. The neighborhood grocery store, Shaw’s, is an equivalent experience to living in these apartments. Slighly unclean, fairly expensive, and commercials blaring commercials at you from TVs at the cash register and deli. Even the gas station next door has advertisement TVs.
8. Parking is uncovered and expensive. Standard for the city, but the parking lots are badly maintained. Potholes everywhere. No assigned parking, and the parking spots are scattered around the neighborhood; not even sure where some of them are. A tree branch fell on our car once, causing a big dent in the hood.
9. The floors aren’t even close to level. Chairs like to roll to the center of the room and tables always have a wobble to them unless you adjust them to just the right angle.
10. The water temperature for the shower fluctuates constantly, especially during early morning when everyone’s showering for work and evening when everyone is running their dishwashers. I’m scalded by a burst of hot water at least once almost every morning.
11. I’ll stop there. You get the point. As a previous reviewer said, live somewhere else. Anywhere else. Don’t live here. Period. They need to go out of business. Really. They do. I can’t believe that we lived here for two entire years.
There were a few positives that *didn’t* outweigh the negatives:
1. The outside of the apartments look nice. Maintenance does a good job with the planters, etc.
2. The maintenance department isn’t exactly thorough, but they’re lightning fast. Call them and they’re there that day.
3. There was a wonderful row of non-​chain fast food restaurants a few blocks away… until they burned down a year and a half ago and weren’t replaced.
4. Not particularly a good quality, but from what I’ve heard and the apartments that I’ve seen, most apartments in this area induce a bad quality of life unless you can afford $ 3000 per month. So maybe this is just standard for the Brookline/​Fenway/​Back Bay area.
5. Fifteen minute walk from where I worked and a thirty minute walk from where my wife worked.