Apartment Rental Agencies

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be moving some time in May and I want to line something up in advance rather than deal with Craig's list at the last minute.

I'm looking for a one bedroom with parking. Somewhere between 600 - 800 a month, so obviously not in the near by areas (though if one were available I'd totally stay) But I would like to leave the possiblity open for things in the area, so I was wondering if there are any rental agencies to work with in the area and the surrounding towns? Or are they all specific town based? Really I'm interested in most of the towns in the southern district of Middlesex county.

Acton, Arlington, Ayer, Belmont, Billerica, Burlington, Cambridge, Concord, West Concord, Everett, Lexington, East Lexington, Lincoln, Littleton, Littleton Common, Maynard, Medford, Melrose, Natick, Newton, Auburndale, Nonantum, Somerville, Stoneham, Sudbury, Waltham, Watertown, Wayland, Weston, Winchester, Woburn.

Does anyone have experiences using rental agencies? I've been having a hard time finding information about them online. Does anyone have one to recommend?

Comments

[gandalfgreyhame.livejournal.com]

Generally they seem to cover pretty small areas. I liked the guy I dealt with at Red Line Real Estate (http://www.redlinerealestate.com/) but ultimately they didn't have what I was looking for; cats being non-negotiable seemed to really limit his inventory for me.

I used Apartment Rental Experts for my soon-to-be-former apartment but while I eventually got what I wanted they set of a good example of wankery in the process (e.g. forgetting to tell me about a pet deposit until a couple of days before I was supposed to sign the lease).

This time around I happened to find a really nice apartment on Craigslist that Gateway Real Estate (http://www.gatewayreg.com/) was handling and they seemed like they really had their shit together. I wasn't using them for the search though, it was just luck on CL.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll look into these!