Douglas Elliman Real Estate – Long Island City

Robert Glessman is friendly, knowledgable and reliable. He went above and beyond to help us find a great place well within our budget in a timely manner. Not only was it any place, it was what I wanted and close to work. A very hands-​on realtor who goes above and beyond to help make it happen. Highly recommend. A+

I cannot begin to tell how lucky I feel after dealing with this office.
Having been in NYC my whole life. I know how some of these agents double talk you.
Well that was not my experience with this office. My agent was as hard working as she was entertaining Please if you anything in Queens use Marlene Flores
pS tell her Helen sent you!

Robbie Glessman is one of the good ones. He tells things to you straight, even if it’s not in his best interest. I go to him for a lot of real estate advice because he knows what’s going on in the market and he doesn’t mince words. He’s always forthright with his opinions and is happy to share his incredible knowledge. When we are ready to make a move, Robbie is the first person I would call.

I went to Douglas Elliman after not liking how a competitor handled finding me a rental. I dealt with Robert Glessman & couldn’t be happier. Not only did he find the right apartment for me in Long Island City but it was in the price range that the other company told me I would never find. I recommend Douglas Elliman to everyone. Not only was Mr Glessman so nice, helpful & always available to take my calls but the staff there was just as professional. It’s was nice to deal with people that treated you like you were family. Thank you so much. I love my new apartment.

Our broker Vicki called 10 min. after appointment time to tell us she would be another 10 minutes late, then spent the entire appointment on the phone.

This is a long review, but I’ll make it worth your while
1) If you are looking to rent in LIC you DONT need a broker for any of the waterfront buildings. This includes:
The Maximilian
Avalon
TFC
49 – 06 11^st
Any building that has a floor plan on StreetEasy
Just go straight to the door and ask for an appointment, or call and schedule it, will save a months rent.
2) Try to avoid Elliman at all cost.
For the rest of the buildings, they usually have multiple brokers, avoid Elliman, they are the worst option. (looked at 20+ places in LIC)
Here comes my specific review:
To quickly summarize, on June 9 Zak Gumpel showed me an apartment that I ended up renting. On June 10, I filed the application to get the lease. I handed Zak certified checks for 3 months of rent on June 12. When I still had not received any formal confirmation 11 days after I paid him and 7 days before the move-​in date, on June 23, I had to take half a day off from work, to actually chase him down and to make sure I did not have to look for a different apartment.
Communication with Zak was inefficient. First, he did not convey necessary information. I had already filed an online application, but he needed information beyond that. It was very unclear which specific information was needed. After several iterations, where Zak sent me a pdf file with only the odd pages of the lease, retracting it, then asking for more information, I had to personally contact on-​site financial to get the screening process going.
Second, after the screening was done, there were further hiccups, which were caused by the management company, according to Zak. Nevertheless, Zak started imposing deadlines for when I would receive the lease. But the self-​imposed deadlines passed several times and Zak did not communicate to me why that was or what his plan of action would be. When I tried to reach him myself, he would answer emails only sporadically and not pick up his phone. The situation was so unclear that I considered having been scammed.
He finally promised me he would personally walk over to the management company to get the issue resolved on Monday, June 22, but I did not hear from him that day either via phone or email. I finally decided to take off half the day from work on Tuesday to get the issue resolved. Suspecting that he was avoiding me I called him from my own phone, and when he did not answer I used my girlfriend’s phone, which he answered immediately. Again, he promised to send the documents «immediately». When after 1.5 hours I still hadn’t received any documents, I got the Douglas Elliman office in Long Island City involved. The lady at the front desk patiently listened to my complaints and took over chasing Zak down. After another hour or two I finally received the contract.
Zak kept deflecting responsibility to the owner of the building, but my complain refers specifically in the way HE behaved during the process: eluding me, making fake promises that are not followed with at least a status update.
As soon as I handed him his broker fee, he seemed to have lost interest in doing what I had paid him to do, and he let me manage the process instead. I filed a formal complain, but the person in charge (Robert Glessman) just gave me generic answers. They were only trying to deflect responsibilities with really silly responses (how can you complain? you got the apartment).
I wouldn’t wish this experience to my worst enemy

We have lived in New York City for over ten years and I guess have been fortunate enough to have never have had a bad experience with a shady realtor or real estate broker. Unfortunately, that all came to an end when we went to look at a new building in Long Island City (The Pearson Court Square) in which Peter Brenner from Douglas Elliman was randomly assigned to us.
First, Peter was not knowledgeable about the neighborhood or the building. He was unable to answer basic questions about the materials used in the units and was equally clueless about what services were in the neighborhood. At one point he even said «Oh, I don’t know, I’m not familiar with this area.»
Second, Peter was never available by phone or e-​mail. After submitting an application for a unit at The Pearson it took several phone calls and e-​mails in order to get him to respond and give us an update on the application process which ended up taking well over a week. This was especially frustrating because he rushed us to complete the application in less than 24 hours but then apparently went away on vacation without telling anyone.
Third, Peter was not sensitive to personal and confidential information. When he did finally respond by e-​mail he cc’d random people on e-​mails that contained our bank account information and other personal and confidential information. We also inadvertently received another applicants financial information from him by e-​mail by mistake.
And finally, after being approved for our apartment, he told us hours before we signed the lease that the rent would actually be more than it was when it was listed and when we submitted our application. This blew my mind. He knew that we had already told the other places we looked at that we decided on The Pearson — so we had no choice but to sign the lease at the increased rate. Shady bait-​and-​switch trick at it’s best.

Had a great experience with Laquana. She was fast to respond to all of our questions, and got us into the place of our dreams. Not anything like most realtors who try to drag you into a more expensive deal. She wasn’t working for our fee but still provided impeccable customer service.

We made an appointment to view an apartment that we saw on StreetEasy. It was $ 3500 in LIC with all the bells and whistles (apparently). The broker-​Jermaine– did not show up to the appointment but instead had the super show us around… there was no washer/​dryer in the unit as stated but it was otherwise decent (not great). The area however was not nice so we decided this was a no. The broker then called to «follow up» two days later. I told him it was a no because of the location and he told me I was wrong, it was the best location to move to because things were being built all over. Ok… well then why didn’t you come to the showing and actually SHOW me where all this amazing stuff was going to be?! I told him it wasn’t for us and hung up.
A week later the OWNER-​Lewis JR– of this unit texts my husband and says «I’ll put a washer/​dryer in the unit if you pay $ 3700 a month and sign a two year lease. Does that work?»
WHAT!!! You want us to pay TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH MORE for you to put something in the unit that it stated it already had?!! AND you want us to commit to two years at this price!!! These people are scum bags and are trying to get unsuspecting people coming and going. What they didn’t know is that we have lived in Manhattan almost ten years and just sold our Midtown condo for enough money to buy ten of these apartments. In other words we would be great tenants AND are too smart to fall for their bull. Honesty could have gone a long way but trust me these people are just trying to rob you blind. DISGUSTING!!!
DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME!!!