Rapid Realty

So after finding a apartment and deciding on it (thanks to Ms. Keavaney), we initiated the process of the filling out paperwork, paying deposit, etc. etc. Everything was going smooth until a Adrian Cardona stepped in. We went from what I thought was going to be a simple procedure to something that was almost similar to amateur hour. Two weeks before the move in date of the 1^st, both me and my partner received numerous text messages from Adrian Cardona demanding full payment, suggesting we borrow money (we both work for very reputable NYC companies) and all this after the deposit was paid and credit checks were approved. He demanded this money due to what he claimed was a trust issue of the landlord but once meeting the landlord and finding out that they had given us the wrong name to sign checks to, the landlord gave us the keys and didn’t seem at all like there was a issue of distrust, completely negating anything Adrian Cardona had said to us. Simply put, I think they just wanted the money because it was Friday and Adrian needed some cash to go to the club with it, I honestly have never seen a realtor be so thirsty to close a deal even though there was a understanding that we would pay the full amount a week before we moved in (which is typical). Adrian threatened us by taking the apartment off the market, texted my girlfriend numerous times and made assumptions toward us that insulted our character, all the while, rap music was blasting in the office and people that I suppose work for «Rapid Realty» are coming in and out looking like people that would sell you drugs on the corner.
Ms. Keavaney did everything she could do and I feel really bad for her experience, because if it wasn’t for Adrian Cardona, everything would have gone smoothly. Unprofessional is not even close to a description and wearing a suit doesn’t mean anything if your attitude is one of desperation.
Once again I feel bad for Ms. Keavaney and hope she finds a better realtor company to work for. She did everything she could and we really appreciate that, she reached out to us and helped us find a apartment, it’s just when Adrian Cardona stepped in, things went sour. I’m sure he had a good night though, impressing women in his H&M budget suit, as he wasn’t there this morning when they opened.
Thank you again to Ms. Keavaney and I wish her the best.

Should have read the reviews.
David was EXTREMELY unprofessional. He whined on the phone about his other clients, which should have been my first red flag. I made an appointment with him anyway because I thought he had an apartment worth seeing. He showed up half an hour late, didn’t have the keys to the apartment, and brought me to the WRONG building at first. What kind of agent doesn’t even know which property they’re showing? Then he showed me a place that was not pet friendly when I had specified I needed something that was. When I told him this, he offered to show me something else, further away from my requested location and $ 100 more expensive. I stupidly accepted. On the way to the second place, he continued to whine and complain about other clients, how they were difficult to work with and how hard his job is. SUPER unprofessional!
Regardless, I liked the place he showed me, made an offer and put down the deposit via credit card. When my offer was declined, I asked for my deposit back, and David told me I would have to go all the way to his office in Ridgewood for that to happen. When I asked why, he told me I could also call up the credit card company to have THEM cancel it (i.e. protest the charge, and god knows how long that process would take.) THEN he finally offered to mail me a check. Why didn’t he just say that in the first place?
I’m appalled at how this whole thing has gone, and SO glad I don’t have to continue to work with them after I (hopefully) get my money back. Listen to the reviews; do NOT work with Rapid Realty!

Uuugh. I have never written a Unilocal review before, but my experience with Rapid Realty was enough to drive me to it, and I wish I could give negative stars. My roommate and I turned to Rapid in a fit of desperation, unable to find an apartment after months of bouncing around Craigslist sublets, but in retrospect, continuing to do that might’ve been the more preferable option.
Everyone who works here is either completely incompetent or intentionally the most difficult people to work with imaginable, adding up to one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. Our agent could barely communicate with us, continually showed us overpriced, dilapidated properties in sketchy areas, and when we somehow miraculously found a place that we liked, ultimately gave us totally incorrect instructions for submitting our payment and documents that involved us having to go back to our bank three times and pay additional fees.
Even once we moved in and thought we were done with Rapid forever, they somehow still had a key to our apartment when it was supposed to have been returned, and continued to show it! At least four agents and their guests entered our house while we were home and who knows what happened while we were at work. We lucked out with a nice owner and property manager, but all other parties agree we will never work with Rapid again. SAVE YOURSELF THE HEADACHE.

I can’t tell if they’re crooks or truly just so stupid and awful at their job you feel like you’re getting ripped off.
You can find a listing on their website, and when you ask them about it they always say «oooo that one JUST got rented but I’ll show you one just like it right next door»… $ 200 more and 10 blocks ghetto’er and it has been a complete waste of time.

Tersea was wonderful!
She worked with our situation and schedule amazingly and made sure we ended up in the perfect home.
Will go back to her the next time I need a home.

Harry was really great. He genuinely listened to what I wanted and then only took me to apartments that fit my price and preference. Not only did he find me an amazing apartment but he negotiated with the landlord to get me a better price. Look, I get it, no one wants to pay a brokers fee. But Harry was well worth it, and if you do the math, based on what he saved me the fee is negligible. I can’t think of a nicer guy who did me a huge solid. I love my new apartment and I was treated fairly and with respect. What more can I ask for?

This has to be where crooks congregate. I tried two different people, gave them a budget and the immediately tried to sell me on an apartment that was $ 300 more than what I told them I was looking for, and in the damn ghetto. I’ve lived in Bushwick my whole life and idc how many white people are moving in, there are certain dark streets I know stay away from after a certain time. I went to a real agency and got an apartment within two weeks. Thanks for waisting my time and great efforts on trying to get such a steep bullshit commission. Who the hell asks for 7% of a whole years worth of rent? FOH

So this wasn’t my first Rapid Realty experience, so I was super hesitant to even move forward with the process once I found out that the sales person who showed me a place (that I absolutely loved) was an agent for Rapid Realty. Teresa, however, managed to turn around my experience completely.
Firstly, she was upfront and professional for every interaction we had. I thought it may have been a fluke initially. She was nice and pleasant and quite personable. I honestly assumed that the pleasure of my experience would fade pretty quickly once the transaction began, but it didn’t. Every step along the way, Teresa was professional and did everything she agreed to do in a timely manner. Her broker was a bit prickly and not quite as personable (until the deal was complete) as Teresa, but my interaction with him was limited.
Once the lease was signed and funds exchanged there was a mix-​up with the broker’s fee, but with Teresa’s help the issue was resolved quickly and with a sense of professionalism that I truly appreciated.
It’s a shame that there don’t seem to be more sales people like Teresa working for Rapid Realty. They’ve got a great technology platform which helps you to complete applications electronically, but they could stand to upgrade their offices which tend to be a bit shabby and «cheap» looking. I also had very good interactions with Wendy in the Bushwick office.
If you find yourself working with a Rapid Realty agent in Bushwick, make sure it’s Teresa. She was absolutely wonderful!

This is the WORST real estate company in New York!!!
I saw an apartment on Craigslist I called the number and «Alexander» texted me back he told me to meet him at the apartment (he provided an address) at 5. I get to the apartment at 450 and Jason and a lady named Wendy show up at 530 to and take me to a different apartment. The apartment was smaller and cost more then the one I saw.
I asked them what happened to the apartment I wanted o see they said they didn’t know anything about it and didn’t know who Alexander was.
What the office does is find home owners that want to rent their place and any agent in the office can show the apartment so there can be 50 agents showing the same apartment in one day! SO THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL GET THE HOME.
They will NOT help you get an apartment and are extremely unprofessional.

My wife and I are in the process of looking for a new apartment for ourselves and our 5 month-​old daughter. I found an apartment through Trulia that caught our eye because of the proximity to our current location (only 1 block away = good for moving a newborn baby) as well as the rent. I sent an email through the Trulia system expressing interest in the apartment, and was happily surprised how fast a reply came from one of this branch’s realtors — Essence Porter.
Unfortunately, that is where my good experience ended. I took some time to answer all of Essence’s questions (of which there were MANY) in case there were any other properties she thought might fit our need, and, because I believe in being forthright with information, let her know that we had been looking for about a month and had been working with a few other brokers. The reply I received was only this: «If you’re working with other brokers, I won’t bother looking.»
I get it… it is hard to deal with shared clients given the amount of research and legwork that sometimes goes into the rental process, but the sad truth of the matter is that with all of the «exclusive listings» and «single broker» management companies, the customer is forced to work with a number of different people just to get enough choices in front of them so that an informed decision can be made. I understand this, and let every broker know that my first priority is finding a comfortable home for my wife and daughter, and it has become nearly impossible to accomplish that through any single broker relationship these days. I’m guessing I’m in the minority when it comes to providing this kind of information, and it is a shame Essence chose to punish me for my candor.
I’m in the customer service industry (I manage multiple high performing event and entertainment properties grossing $ 45 million+ annually), and I know first-​hand that if you are not ready to fight for your customers they are just going to stop coming altogether. Essence is clearly not fighting for the branch’s customers or the branch’s business… perhaps it is time for her to decide if she really has the motivation to be a good sales person, because at the moment she is drowning the business with her mediocrity and laziness.
Experiences like this are what push people to write bad reviews and tell their friends, colleagues, neighbors, landlords, and management companies which brokerage firms to avoid. I say again, it is a competitive market… how many bad reviews will it take to stop customers from seeking Rapid Realty out?
My hope is, this is the review that will steer the next customer in another direction.

I am being generous with this one star.
APARTMENT SEEKERS: STAY AWAY AND READ CAREFULLY.
PART 1: I have never taken the time to write a review on a real estate office. I am a home owner and worked with several real estate offices a few years back for several months before purchasing my property.
I recently had an apartment open up and listed it on a couple of websites including craigslist for the first time. To my surprise, I was contacted by this office to show the apartment. Here is a real estate scouting apartments on craigslist that I personall did not want to pass along an extra few thousand dollars of fees to a potential tenant, reaching out to me so they could make an easy buck. Nonetheless I was accommodating and allowed them to view and show the apartment. The insane thing is that four different people from this agency had contacted me. One of them named Jason was the worst. He, as unprofessional as he was, by chance of luck, was working with a very nice couple applicant who my husband and I thought would be great tenants and they too seemed to like the apartment very much. During this meeting Jason cut the meeting quite short on his own accord even though my husband and the couple still both had questions for each other and rushed the applicants out of the apartment. I called the following day to follow up with Jason and initially he was confused about which applicants he had brought to the apartment less than 18 hours prior. I asked him to set up a follow up phone or in person discussion as we were prepared to offer these folks the apartment for rent. Jason claimed to have called and texted them but no one heard back and also gave me different versions of why he couldn’t get in touch with these people, that they may have found something else and then continued to try to push other applicants who «had left a deposit» on me. It appears that this business is concerned with getting applicants to put down money and then as quickly as possible getting them in apartments that they quite possibly do not want to live in.
After reading the reviews on here, I can see why. This office is a joke and a scam house.
TENANT APPLICANTS: IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR AN APARTMENT TO RENT — JUST HIT UP RAPID REALTY’S DATABASE aka CRAIGSLIST and bypass the potentially crazy fees they will charge you for doing nothing but lying to tenants and homeowners alike.
I luckily was able to rent out my apartment to another interested party but would have preferred to rent out to the couple that Jason had brought threw but managed to completely lose the ability to communicate with.
Shame on whoever owns this company and lets these practices take place like this.
SO many others places a person could look — stay far away.
PART 2: I absolutely needed to add this update — Jason’s colleague, Adrian, called to «follow up» with an «explanation» of why the client never got back to them. This is AFTER I returned his call and left him a message stating that we already rented the apartment. In a pitiful attempt to make us feel regretful in «losing» that applicant, he called back with a very theatrical story of the couple never getting back to them because the wife was in labor. Really? At 6 months preggos? I just rolled with his little explanation and gave him some grease right back. He also had some nerve to let him know if we need anything in the future to which I replied of course of course. Clearly after reading these reviews it is apparent that an intelligent couple like those applicants were too smart to work with unprofessional people like this. Jason by the way even had the nerve to bring an applicant by completely unannounced, rang another tenant’s bell to gain entry to the building and luckily my husband ran into him in the hallway.
Next time, he or anyone from that agency will be dealt with the old fashion way when trespassing someone’s property.
Better luck next time. If these folks could sell ice to eskimos then we could speak but for now, they are a bunch of jokes.

Okay, so: brokers are a pretty terrible class of people, in my experience. These guys may not be the worst that I’ve encountered, but they still don’t deserve any more than one star.
Dear broker: I paid you a couple thousand dollars to show me one apartment, tell actual LIES just because they were what I wanted to hear, and to allow me to sign a lease. Plus, an extra $ 50 for a credit check? I know it’s common practice, but I also know that credit check costs you under $ 20 and that, well, I paid you SO MANY HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS to do essentially nothing.
What’s even lovelier is that our hardworking broker here misrepresented the broker fee. The actual fee was an unpleasant surprise, and it was too late in the month, and therefore too close to my moving date, for me to consider backing out by the time I heard how much it was.

I’m totally down with Bushwick, Brooklyn, Rapid Realty. I was able to negotiate on the price and lease agreement until I was truly happy with, rent, length of lease, utilities, and realty fee. I bet I pay less than others in my building that used a different realtor. Also, Jason, my personal relator was super awesome. Was super friendly and chill but still really professional. Got back to me immediately and frequently. Showed me all over and had all the answers. The guy even helped me move in and introduced me to the cute girl in 4e. Couldn’t have asked for more. Great experience. Thanks Jason, and thanks rapid realty.
–Joey Trash’Bags

I personally had a great experience here. I worked with a wonderful agent named David J Abrams. David was fantastic to work with. A great broker and all around nice guy. He moved fast to get us the apartment we wanted and also helped keep my nerves from driving me crazy in the process. We ended up renting an apartment we love and had the pleasure of getting it done with an excellent agent.

This is a review for Jamesia Purkett in the Bushwick office. I went the PadMapper route (
) and replied to a listing I found there. Jamesia was the associated broker with the listing and responded to me instantly to set up an appointment. I wasn’t thrilled to deal with brokers, but after 13 years in NYC, multiple moves and little time to search for myself. I had resigned to just dealing with it. I will admit I was nervous when she told me she was with Rapid Realty, as the reviews on here are terrifying. I can’t speak for the whole company, but everyone I dealt with was very helpful. It isn’t Corchoran. There is definitely a different vibe going on here – a bit younger, a little rough around the edges. But they got the job done.
Apartment hunting in NY is incredibly competitive, and I ended up losing the first place I saw to someone who met the landlord before I got a chance to. However, Jamesia came armed with more listings and took me out immediately – in her car, like a real human– to see other places. She listened to what I wanted and cheerfully tolerated my insanity in the search. She was responsive and kept me in the loop the entire time when dealing with paperwork and landlords. Within a week of meeting Jamesia, I had signed for the perfect apartment. She worked her ass off for me and I felt really good about paying that broker fee. Seriously, it was well worth it. Jamesia is proactive and no nonsense. I so appreciated her attitude and willingness to help me find the right home. Wendy Hu also lended a hand in the lease signing, as she had already built a relationship with this particular landlord.
All in all, this was the best possible scenario for me in my search. I would recommend Jamesia to anyone looking for a place in Brooklyn.

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Good luck finding an apartment with this office full of clowns.
I saw an ad for a great apartment in Crown Heights and made an appointment with Dexter to see it. He kept me waiting for over an hour, but I waited because I really wanted the apartment. We finally saw it, and I was pretty much sold, but he said that he had another option in Bedstuy, so we went over to see that. We had to attempt to buzz our way into the second building, and after getting cursed out by someone on the first floor, we walked in with a resident who just happened to be coming home. We went up to the apartment which pretty much looked like a bomb went off inside. It’s great that it’s being gut renovated, but I would prefer to not go see a place before it freaking has walls.
I decided to put a deposit on the first place, and Dexter tells me to come to his office and do so in the morning. Most brokers would get the process going the same evening, but Dexter seemed inexperienced and slightly disoriented. He was a nice person, but I needed someone who was going to make the necessary moves to prevent me from living in the subway. So of course Dexter went out of town the next day and was impossible to get a hold of, so I went to the office anyway and just let the people who were there know the situation. David helped me apply and processed my paper work. Great, right? Wrong. I received my receipt via email and I noticed that it listed a different address than the one that I applied for. I called David immediately to point out the error, and he told me some story about someone applying for the apartment that I wanted seconds before I did. Turns out he put my deposit on this random apartment (in a completely different neighborhood) without my consent. What? Since when do brokers tell you where you’re going to live? FOH. I requested a refund, and David said he would process it. Of course when I called over the next few days to check on the status of my refund, neither David nor Dexter were anywhere to be found. I finally got my refund ironed out with the manager, and when I went to pick it up, David avoided making eye contact and Dexter offered to reach out with more apartment suggestions. As expected, I never heard from any of them again. Good riddance!

Unethical.
My Craigslist (apartment for rent/​no fee/​by owner) ad clearly says not OK to contact Owner or Owner’s rep by brokers but Wendy Wu still contacted me.

I was looking to move to Brooklyn last summer and wanted to find a one-​bedroom in the area of Prospect Heights/​Bed Stuy/​Crown Heights that cost $ 1250/​mo or less. I went out on a Sunday with agent Adam who seemed to be very nice. I was shown about 4 places and every single apartment was at least $ 200 above my price limit, which annoyed me. If there was nothing in my price range I would have preferred that they were upfront instead of wasting my time.
The absolute worst part came at the end of the day when I saw a one-​bedroom apartment that was perfect in terms of location, but again was quoted at a price $ 200 above my price range. After meeting the owner and touring the property I went with Adam to Rapid’s Bushwick office to put in an application and do the credit check. The property owner was called in for what I thought would be merely filling out the paperwork and closing the deal. To my shock, it turns out the property owner had requested a rent that was $ 200 higher than what I was quoted. To the surprise of both me and the owner the manager had called the owner in for an ambush ad-​hoc mediation to close the $ 400 price gap. The owner pitched a screaming fit, told the manager off, and stormed out of the office. I was positively mortified.
About a week later I got another call from Rapid asking if I wanted to see more properties. I lied and said that I’d already found a place. About two weeks later I lucked out and found a place on Craig’s List that was both in the area that I wanted, and within my price range. It was listed directly by the management company so there was no fee and no drama.

Excellent customer service! The realtors were very helpful in answering all our questions and concerns. They were pretty funny too: D We looked around the first day and signed our lease a few hours later.
Yay! this is wayy better than looking on craigslist… seriously