Tom Hoch

My wife and I recently moved to NY from Boston, and had to find a good apartment in a relatively short period of time (a week), without really knowing most of the neighborhoods at all well. We ended up working with 4 different realtors. Two of them we picked based on online reviews, and they were nice, but ultimately didn’t show us much we were interested in.
Tom was recommended by a friend, and he had a totally unique attitude. He was happy to explain to me about different neighborhoods, listen to what I was really looking for and talk realistically about my price range and where I should be looking. He warned me not to waste my time with Craigslist bait-​and-​switch stuff, yet he was also willing to look at some CL and StreetEasy ads I sent him and tell me whether they were in a good area and what he liked or didn’t like about the listing.
Basically, he wanted to try and find us a place we were going to like, without wasting our time or his walking around to places that were junk. Ultimately, he took us to only two places. One was not right at all, and he was really annoyed at the realtor who had steered him wrong, but put a totally gracious face on it. The other place was almost perfect, an exclusive property of a former co-​worker of his, and we came incredibly close to taking it.
We ended up taking another place, but we really felt that Tom was awesome, and would work with him again in a heartbeat. He kept his smile through 100-​degree heat, taught us a lot about NY apartments and neighborhoods, and basically made us want to take him out for a drink just to hang out.