Halstead Property – Cobble Hill

Came home to a dirty envelope on my door. See here:
I don’t appreciate Halstead Property leaving me letters to solicit business. If someone wants to sell their house, they will go to the realtor on their corner, not a real estate office a half an hour away.
Try using a stamp and sending proper correspondence if you want a customer’s business. Sending randoms to post junk on our door is annoying.

So we just rented a new construction apartment with Halstead Property acting as the agents owner. We dealt with three different employees of the organization, two of which were great. They were professional and really just generally nice people, one broker by the name of Susan just screwed us royally. When we looked at the apartment which has two floor to ceiling windows and two smaller shutter like windows we were told that due to the need for custom sizing, the owner would pick up the costs of the window treatments but we as tenants would be responsible for the installation.
We were put off as the landlord should be paying for the window treatments regardless but we begrudgingly went along with it. After signing the lease and dropping off our certified checks we found out that this is not the case. The landlord will «help» with the installation (I sure hope that means that he the landlord will «perform» the installation) but we were responsible for he costs of the window treatments. Mind you these are custom treatments so after our lease is up, they are as good to us as garbage.
I would have given Halstead five stars as the rest of our experience was above what we expected but due to this «error?» we are out anywhere between $ 750 and $ 5k as god knows what these are going to cost so two stars is probably generous.
One mistake but it was a really big one.

We did not have a pleasant experience here. I can’t remember the name of the agent we spoke with, but he was kind of an asshole.
My roommate and I explained our budget and what we’re looking for, and he straight up told us that we wouldn’t be able to afford anything unless we go really far into Brooklyn. Not in a nice way either, it was in a «don’t waste my time because you’ll never be able to afford a place in a decent neighborhood» kind of way.
One week later we got a place in a great location in Williamsburg!

I agree with the Hourly D’s review. My husband and I were assigned to the same agent and his aggressive and sour attitude made for a very unpleasant and fruitless attempt at finding an apartment.
If we weren’t interested in a listing he brought us to, he’d get irritated and try and talk us into it, telling us we wouldn’t be able to find anything better. This was especially annoying when the apartment didn’t meet ANY of our criteria, which we had given him prior. When I asked him about a particular area of Brooklyn I was interested in (Williamsburg — where we ended up living), he told me that I wouldn’t want to live there and sort of hinted that he wouldn’t show us anything there.
He went on unprompted tirades about how he hated cyclists, how the bike paths are ruining Brooklyn and how no «real» artists live in LA. He should be careful which subjects he picks as chit chat with his clients because my husband and I both own bikes and I found the artist comment ignorant and insulting considering I’m a working artist who lived in LA at the time.
There was even this moment where he showed us an apartment that we weren’t interested in over in DUMBO and he wanted us to walk down to the waterfront park to show us what we’d be missing if we didn’t pick that place and I told him that I’d rather not because I could plainly see it from where I was and because, at the time, I was freezing and it would obviously be colder down by the water with the windchill. He then demanded that I go down there, saying that if I didn’t, we’d all be wasting our time. I haven’t been bossed around by someone like that since I was a child and I found it completely disrespectful.
After showing us all of the apartments he had made appointments with, we asked him if he he could tell us how to get back to our hotel in Manhattan by subway and AGAIN he got clearly irritated, telling us that he had told us that about an hour ago when he was explaining the train lines to us. I’m not from NYC or Brooklyn and it was only my second time there. There was no way I was going to retain that sort of information while trying to keep up with an angry Brooklynite in freezing cold weather.
I don’t think he should be a broker if he doesn’t like dealing with people who aren’t from the city.
If he had found us what we were looking for, his attitude would have been forgiven. But the fact is, he didn’t. He literally left us out in the cold.

Everyone knows that apartment hunting in New York is tough. There are good and bad agents, both honorable and dishonorable. My experience with Halstead was of the later.
My partner and I looked at a great apartment in Ft Greene which we decided to submit an application, complete with references and financial details via our Halstead agent, Rodney Ripps.
The following day we were notified that we had got the apartment and arrangements were made to sign the lease and meet the landlord the next day.
90 minutes (!!) before meeting to sign the lease, we received a call from Rodney Ripps saying that unfortunately, the apartment had gone to someone else. How this can happen is beyond me but what I can say is that the agent in this case was neither a man of his word, nor a person of substance. Ripps by name, Ripps by reputation.
My wholehearted suggestion is to do business with anyone other than Halstead Property in Cobble Hill.