Leading Edge Real Estate

Kathleen G. _{on Yelp}

Aug 1st, 2017

I worked with Jon Petrowsky whom I considered a friend and his partner Christian Jones who are now affiliated with Compass.  Everything was botched --staging, marketing, photography.  They are phoning it in these days having sold so much real estate.  Stay away!

Joe K. _{on Yelp}

Oct 10th, 2015

My fiance and I worked with Michael Bloomer on a condo purchase in Arlington and he was great!My sister had recommended him as she and her husband bought a condo a couple years ago and he didn't disappoint.He was very personable and took the time to make sure we understood a very complicated process.

Mau B. _{on Yelp}

May 2nd, 2015

This is by far the worst realtor I've ever had to deal with. The agent that I had to work with, Andrea Blum was completely racist, showing me places she thought would fit within my budget, without consulting me for my budget first, and making assumptions about my ability to pay! As if that was not insulting enough, she asked me to provide evidence of my enrollment in graduate school, and information of my acceptance as if that has anything to do with where I should be able to live. If you do not look outwardly privileged, aka white, probably not the place for you to go!

Ankita G. _{on Yelp}

Jul 16th, 2014

We just bought a house that was for sale through agents at Hammond Residential in Cambridge. I understand that the real estate market is competitive, especially in Boston. But the two agents who represented the seller did not care to do their due diligence to ensure what they listed on the MLS sheet was true. They mentioned a few things on the sheet that we found out were not verified beforehand, and were not true. We were too far in the process to back out when we found out, but if the agents had done their job and reported correct information, our deal would have went much more smoothly. As a buyer, its annoying when the selling agents "misrepresented the information." All they had to do was take a few minutes, make a call, and verify what they were listing in the MLS sheet is true. When I go to sell (or buy again) I would steer clear of the information coming form Hammond's agents!!

John H. _{on Yelp}

Jun 4th, 2013

My wife and I originally listed our central Cambridge condo with Hammond Real Estate (Cambridge, MA), because the agent who helped us buy it about 16 years ago is now working out of that office and we'd had a good experience with her. Last winter, as we were getting ready to list it, several weeks after we had completely agreed on the agent's recommended asking price, she told us she had decided that the price was more than 12% too high. She'd had a meeting with the other brokers in her office, she said, and they all agreed the price was too high, given the substantially lower selling prices of 2 other units in our building 1-2 years ago. She further cautioned us about how conservative bank appraisals had become in "this economy," that they now tend to appraise residential properties substantially lower than before in order to reduce their lending risk, and that therefore she didn't want us to run the risk of an offer falling through due to a high asking price.  When we asked why she had initially recommended the higher price, she said she had only done 'comparables' (looked at final sale prices for other, similar condos in our area) going back 6 months, because bank appraisers don't look at sales any older than that, and that therefore she hadn't taken the sales of the other 2 units in our building into consideration. We talked for about an hour and for the life of us couldn't get a straight answer to our question: Why was she now asking us to lower her original recommended asking price by almost $70,000???  What had changed so drastically? Nothing she told us seemed to add up, make senseSo after talking with several friends with current, in-depth knowledge of the current Cambridge residential real estate market, all of whom were amazed that our agent was recommending such a low price, we decided to end our relationship with Hammond and go with Channing Real Estate, a smaller, very experienced agency with offices in Harvard Square. Long story short: we just sold our unit for only $20,000 less than the Hammond agent's original, recommended asking price.  In other words, if we'd stayed with Hammond, WE PROBABLY WOULD HAVE LEFT AT LEAST $50,000 ON THE TABLE!  I can only speculate about what went on at Hammond. Best case: serious incompetence. Medium case: they wanted to move inventory, sell our unit as fast as possible for their own financial benefit, even if that cost their client (us) 50+ large. Worst case: our agent (sole agency, by the way) or someone else in the Hammond office wanted a lower price as a favor to a friend shopping the Cambridge condo market. Anyway - it was all pretty appalling and I wouldn't recommend Hammond (Harvard Square) to anyone.  I would highly recommend Channing, however - great folks, very attentive, hands-on, good negotiators, 20+ years experience with the Cambridge market.