Forest Properties Management

I am a resident in one of the Parkside apartments near Fenway, and can honestly say the management of the property is absolutely miserable. Just a couple anecdotes:
1. When my roommate and I first moved in last September, we requested that various parts of the apartment be fixed. The door to the kitchen closet wouldn’t open, the towel rack in the bathroom was ripped off the wall, and several ceiling panels were more holes than panels. None of these requests were filled, despite multiple followup requests.
2. In January (arguably the coldest month of the year), the boiler, which heats the building, exploded. The basement flooded, the entire building lost heat for five nights, and for two of those five days my roommate and I were given no heating source. We sent multiple emails to the «management» distribution (which, I recently discovered, is outsourced. None of the emails sent to the management email distro are read by the actual property managers.), which went unanswered until we spoke directly with the facilities manager, who issued 3 space heaters to warm our apartment. Space heaters are much more expensive than the regular heat source, but the leasing office «doesn’t discount rent under any circumstances».
3. In early April, we noticed a few cockroaches on the stairs and outside our apartment. Figuring it was springtime and students were moving out of the building, we waited a couple days to see if a notice appeared from management. Soon afterwards, we started finding cockroaches inside our apartment, mostly in the bathtub. We contacted management and requested an exterminator come immediately, as this is in clear violation of both Boston and Massachusetts health code. Once again, our requests went unanswered, but we were much more persistent this time around and emailed the office again the following morning. And afternoon. And the following morning and afternoon. Finally I called the office and spoke with someone who assured me the exterminator would be cleaning the apartment the following day, and didn’t we receive a notice? We did not receive a notice, but the person I spoke with (whose name I am very tempted to disclose, but won’t because I think he was actually trying to help, but was too ignorant to do so) assured me there was no preparation required. My roommate and I went to work the following day, looking forward to coming home to a clean apartment. Unfortunately, we returned to find a note from the exterminator explaining that we needed to clear out all cabinets, cupboards, closets, etc. I called the office the following morning (after finding a cockroach IN MY BED that evening), and was assured the apartment would be cleaned… in 7 days. For those of you doing the math, that’s nearly two weeks from initial complaint to exterminator entering the unit.
The individuals I’ve spoken with have not only been unhelpful, they’ve also been dismissive and flat out dishonest with me. Combined with the disgusting living conditions, which have violated contractual obligations many times, I think it goes unspoken that I would rate Forest Properties Management 0 stars if possible.

Absolutely nightmare. The staff is bitchy, they don’t serve you as resident, they serve you like you owe them money. You package is always missing since homeless people will come in to the lobby to unwrap the packages seeing if the thing in it is useful. Almost no privacy, since the wall is so thin, you will be able to know when your neighbor will come home or leave, and what music he is playing. I wish I had never lived here

Their 1530 Beacon property in Brookline is poorly managed — elevators are always out of service, lost heat overnight twice last winter, washers are in various states of functionality, and they refuse to take any responsibility when they lose your packages. Worst of all the management in the building is incompetent.
There are thousands of other places in live Boston, go somewhere else.

My review is for this management property. I live in their 121 Park Dr property.
Looked great at first then when we actually moved in had to deal with mice and cockroaches for a few months. In January of 2012 the boiler went out and we lost heating to the entire building for 5 days, with the morning temperature around 9 degrees. Forest Properties gave a letter of explanation on day 4 and provided a small plug in space heater to compensate. There were no other steps or compensation taken.
With the slow maintenance and pest problems I can only give them a one star as a management company.
On the plus side there is a park across the street.

These apartments are beautiful, but the staff is NOT worth it. I have lived here for two years (and leaving at the end of the month, thank God). There has not been one time that I have called in and have experienced good customer service. The staff not only are rude and the least amount of helpful as humanly possible, they will rush you off the phone and inconvenience you as if it’s something that they personally enjoy. Kristie is a total b*tch, along with the rest of the staff. I have no idea how or why she hasn’t been fired yet for such appalling customer service. Do not rent from Forest Properties. I plan on telling anyone i know in the future that is interested in them the same thing. I’m just excited for move-​out day when I can finally tell them how I feel to their face.

I’ve lived in the city of Boston for 8 years, and 2 of them, I have lived in a Forest Properties building. I have always found the building to be very well-​kempt, and any maintenance issues have been dealt with immediately, most of the time the same day or the day after.
I was referred to Forest Properties through a friend who currently lives in one of their buildings. After going through the ridiculous mess of trying to find a small apartment with brokers, Craigslist ads, and random postings on the internet, I was relieved when they said they had an opening for a studio. Once I took a look, I realized that their apartments are refreshed, bright, and very well-​maintained, especially for buildings that are 100 years old.
I have had only a VERY positive experience with Forest Properties. There have been a few miscellaneous issues I’ve had to deal with and they were VERY accommodating throughout it all.

This is for 26 Hemenway:
Never rent from these people.
They’re incredibly condescending at the office, and unreasonable about fixing things that are their responsibility to fix. For example:
My sink has been broken since I moved in, despite multiple calls regarding fixing it. They renovated my apartment in the middle of my stay here, forcing me to move to a different apartment and then back; the «complimentary» movers they provided me broke two items of mine and I wasn’t compensated. Despite a fancypants renovated look, the apartment setup is garbage. The aforementioned sink problem is only the beginning; they also think that throwing a wall up in the middle of a studio suddenly qualifies it as a «one-​bedroom» and so therefore jacking the rent up $ 350 is okay. No. That’s garbage. This apartment is too tiny to reasonably fit a single couch or futon. The ceiling leaked repeatedly, the neighbors are all students and are unreasonably loud, and if your apartment faces the front, your windowsills will be covered in ash from the smokers that hang out on the front steps.
Not to mention the mouse problem.
I would rather live at home with my parents than deal with this place, in retrospect. Don’t do it to yourself.

This is for their 26 Hemenway Street apartments.
These guys are completely scum. Seriously, unless you can’t find any other place to rent, do not give these people your money. The people they employ are not looking out after you, they only want your money. Everything is constantly breaking down, the people are rude, the maintenance is often unhelpful, and the alleys and buildings are infested with rats. It’s not a minor infestation either, it’s been called one of the worst infestations in the city and even the mayor himself had to come see it for himself, check out this news article:
What did they do to try and fix it? They put some pavement in the alleyways and put two, yes TWO mousetraps in everyone’s apartment. Other than that, they haven’t made any other effort to get rid of this infestation. The rats are crawling all through people’s apartments, I’ve heard many complaints from neighbors and I recently saw one in my apartment too.
Not only that, but as you can see from other reviews below, they also don’t bother recycling.
This would be all fine and dandy if the people who worked at the management office were reasonable and nice people. Instead, the people who work there are irate, rude, snobby, and pretentious. They talk to you like you’re some sort of lower-​level life form. If you call and ask for repairs and service men, sometimes they show up on time, but many times they never appear at all. For the entire 2 years that I’ve lived here, part of the ceiling has been jutting out and looks like it’s about to collapse, but luckily it never has. We’ve called them dozens of times to fix this, and all they’ve done is come in, looked at it, then left. We’ve had constant issues with our toilet and shower, and the problems might be temporarily fixed, only to return a week later.
They invent reasons to take your money. They don’t allow you to hand in multiple checks, which caused many problems for me since my roommate was usually pretty late with rent. As a result, one month we were charged a late fee. This is fine in and of itself, as that was mainly my roommate’s burden, except for the fact that the cost of the late fee kept changing arbitrarily to their whim. One moment we get one figure, and we triple check it to make sure that that is the exact amount that we need to pay. We call them several times to confirm, and then we pay the late fee. A week later we are told we still owe some part of the late fee, because for some reason they decided to change the amount.
Their buildings have serious safety issues. The main entrance door lock often doesn’t work. One my friend’s roommates was robbed at gunpoint upstairs from me.
They decided to force some renovations into our apartment during the middle of our stay. We never asked for these, and had to deal with 2 weeks of construction and limited to no access to our kitchen. We had no choice in the matter, they just forced their way in to our apartment and made these renovations.
One of the renovation threatened to shorten the space in my room by several feet, which would cause me to completely rearrange it, get rid of several pieces of furniture, and all in all be a gigantic headache, since the renovation would be completely useless to me and serve no extra purpose. After tireless fighting, I was able to make them hold off until after I move out to make this renovation, but under the condition that I sign a document saying I won’t renew my lease.
Dealing with Forest Properties has been a complete nightmare. I remember one time having a brief conversation with one of the management over some minor issue, and the people were actually being nice and treating me like a human being. I was completely shocked and surprised, as it was beyond my reality to believe that these people were capable of empathy and human emotion. This incident happened only once. If you’re reading this and considering Forest Properties for your next rental, don’t do it. Don’t think that us reviewers giving low ratings are negative nancys, and the positive reviewers know what’s really up. Don’t think that you’ll be the exception, that the apartment you looked at seems in good condition and you’ll never have issues. You will. You’ll have to deal with the management, and hate every second of it, then you’ll wonder why you didn’t listen to this review and stay away from them. These people are so awful, I had to make an account and post about it online as a warning. I have never heard any of my neighbors say nice things about Forest Properties. I can’t think of a single positive thing to say about Forest Properties and their staff. They are all vile, vitriolic people who see you as dollar signs, not people. If I seem to be repeating myself, it is because I cannot stress this enough: Stay away from Forest Properties.

My Forest Properties experience has been great so far. When we moved in, the apartment needed a few things fixed i.e. window lock, sink clogged, door knob. They handled these things next day in under 20 minutes. The contract and documents were thoroughly explained upon initiating residency and so far there have been no issues or surprises. One of their employees even recommended a local Comcast cable representative that was able to give us a special rate not available online or through the general hotline. Would love to stay at this address under Forest Properties but unfortunately we waited too late to look for a new apartment as all listings have been rented out!

This company is the worst! I took over someones lease for the summer and forest properties has made these 3 months the most difficult 3 months I have ever had dealing with any landlord.
1. As a graduate student they made me have a co– signer even after I proved how much money I had and after I offered to pay all three months upfront.
2. When I moved in I didn’t have a working shower for 3 weeks — every time I called they said they would send someone right away but no one ever came.
3. Kristen who works in the office on westland ave is the rudest person I have EVER spoken to. She is miserable and gives me an attitude every time I call. When I told her my shower was not working she basically told me that it was impossible and I was wrong.
4. They have NO consideration when it comes to showing the apartments to new tenants. Like I said I am only living in the apartment for 3 months and they have been showing the the place 3 times a day EVERY day since I moved in. All the times are spread out. When I asked them if they could try to consolidate the showings to at least once a week they lied to me and told me someone was signing that day. Since then there has been 3 showing each day. some at 9am then 1pm then 4pm. Having people come in and out of your living space all day long every day is incredibly inconvenient.
5. Before I realized how horrible they were I was thinking of re-​signing the lease for another year after the summer. They had told me the rent would increase by $ 150 if I wished to do that. When I called to ask them if it was still available they said yes but claimed now I would have to pay $ 200 more a month. When I asked why the price went up again they had to real answer and were just trying to give me a hard time.
I could go on but this review is already too long… I would NOT rent from this company — they are not good people!

I would NEVER rent from forest properties again, and I would go out of my way to tell people how terrible they are. First, the girls in the office are the worst, Kristi in particular. You would think you’re talking to a bratty teenager, but if you stop by the office you’ll see she’s not. If you think that she is rude on the phone, and probably talking poorly about you anytime she puts you on hold or after you hang up the phone then you’re right. I got that impression when I had first talked to her about paperwork, first/​last etc, and then heard it firsthand. I was in the office to get a new key, (this is fall 2011, but Kristi unfortunately is still there) and while I’m sitting in their office heard her mocking and insulting whoever she was on the phone with as soon as she hung up.
Aside from how terrible Kristi is, and I definitely suggest avoiding her, the apartments at 89 Park Drive should also be avoiding. I understand you’re paying for location here, but there were SO MANY MICE! Not only were they in the kitchen where they would naturally be drawn because of food, but we could not keep them out of the bedrooms. When I moved out behind every bookcase and piece of furniture there was a disgusting amount of droppings.
Forest was definitely aware of the situation because a couple times someone would come by to fill any openings to try and prevent the mice. When he was there, (don’t know his name or affiliation but he was very nice) he pulled out the stove to try and block openings and replace bait. I overheard him talking to his coworker about how my apartment alone would need 45 minutes of work to solve the problem, but when Forest wanted them to do two buildings in just one day there was no way he could actually get anything done. Awesome.
In addition to the mice, the apartment condition in general was not worth the price. They were not well maintained at all, aside from getting new paint maybe every year.
I’m not sure who the other properties are, but I would suggest avoiding anything to do with Forest Properties at all.

Another package was stolen today from another tenant.

First I’m going to say that this review is for the 91 Westland building that is managed by Forest Properties so all I know about is this building and the property management/​maintenance team. Also, I’m taking price into consideration when giving 5 stars. This is no archstone, or other luxury building, but when considering amenities, living space, management, and how much I pay I am very very satisfied.
I moved in about 8 months ago and have had almost no negative experiences. First the few minor annoyances that beleaguered me. When I went to renew my lease I felt that I was treated a little rudely considering that I have been paying rent on time for 7 months and have been no annoyance to the management office, but hey money negotiations always get terse at times. Secondly, those employed at concierge aren’t the friendliest people and look like they really don’t want to be there, but then again they get the job done so who is to complain.
Now the pluses. Since moving in I have gotten new carpet, kitchen floor, bathroom floor and a bathroom vanity. All due to minor defects that the property management office was more than happy to fix. (Well actually the carpet had some cigarette burns in it, so some fixes weren’t minor issues). It was a little tricky nailing down a time when the maintenance could be performed, but the overall experience was a very positive one and while the work performed isn’t of a quality I would like in an owned property I was perfectly happy with their fixes for my rented apartment. (specifically they tiled over tile and carpeted over carpet, so I am not sure what they will do next time they have to replace a carpet or tile floor.)
Also the management office is always there to help you with an issues and there is a 24 hour hot-​line that I have used a couple of times when I had some issues which was hit and miss in terms of helpfulness, but gives me peace of mind if anything major were to happen.
The building security is great with key-​fob entrances and an (almost 24-​hour) full time staff of concierge employees. The building is clean and well maintained and I have never seen a rodent, ant or roach.
Overall very nice, and once you consider price, it is great.

I have to say that my girlfriend and I were completely scammed by this place. We’re moving to Boston for my postdoc there, and put in an application for one of their properties on Park Dr in the Fenway. We were completely up front with all of our information, and that only I had a job at the time. They called us back an hour later and said we had to get a co-​signer, since they require the rent be less than ¹⁄₃ of the household income and it was ½ of my income. We were told that as long as it all added up to more than 3X the yearly rent, we were fine. We got the co-​signer (together, the rent is now ¼ of our income), and I was told on the phone, «Everything looks good… we’re FedEx-​ing you the lease tomorrow.» They then called my girlfriend two hours later and started asking why she didn’t have an income, even though they’d been given NO NEW information… had they just noticed it? It was brought up with them in the office… so no clue. They called me back and THEN told me that just «to be a co-​signer, the rent can only be ¼ of your income.» I told them I didn’t know anyone who made 85,000 dollars/​year, but reminded them that they’d told me that as long as my and the co-signer’s income equaled more than 3X the rent, we were OK. I also noted to them that the sum of our income was short of the «¼» mark by two thousand dollars, so it would be a shame to lose it over that. I was told that it all was approved and fine. I was then called back two days later and told that, since my g/​f doesn’t have a job, they couldn’t rent to us and that this was now over. They gave me the deposit back, but they did take our ‘application fees’ of $ 70 and wouldn’t return them. Stay away from this group. They are either incompetent or liars.