Hancock Realty Group

We needed to quickly find a new office space and the folks at Hancock were super responsive and professional. Some of the process was new for our team and our rep. Brendan Dettwyler was very helpful at every step of the process. They helped us find a great spot for our office team to call home! Hancock Realty are great community members, are highly regarded in Salem and I recommend them with 5 stars!

Not usually one to write reviews but my experience was so awful. If you have interest in this Realty group I am highly recommending that you reconsider. Especially not with Israel Reyes. At first, I was excited about my opportunity to rent one of these properties, but as we got closer and closer to signing the lease, more and more red flags continued to pop up.

When I was extended an offer on an apartment, Izzy was eager at for me to get out any questions I had on the unit - I didn’t have many concerns, but since he seemed so friendly and open I decided to ask why the rent was being raised by $100 mid lease term as I would be taking over for another tenant who broke their lease. Immediately he went on a tangent about how expensive everything is nowadays - specifically fire alarm panels (?) - this should have been the first red flag. If you are going to buy up all of these properties, be prepared for the upkeep. It’s part of the job. But I didn’t argue, as I understood, and asked solely out of curiosity and was being pushed so hard to put any lingering concerns on the table.

The second (and larger) red flag was when Izzy continuously complained about tenants who request maintenance. He even said that he had just finished moving in a tenant who pointed out something in the unit that was in need of repairs, and told me he offered her every penny of her money back if she would just move right out of the apartment that same day. Not sure if anyone has ever told him this, but that’s what you do when you first move into an apartment. You make note of everything wrong with it so that when it comes time to refund the security deposit, you have your bases covered and proof of preexisting damages. But, he only viewed this as complaining and wanted to kick her out. That’s what made me question if this was his first day on the job or if he’s truly been doing this for 20+ years as he claimed. It was just plain unprofessional. No ‘landlord’ should have that short of a temper when it comes to keeping apartments in decent shape; apartments that tenants are already overpaying to live in. It’s clear he sees his people as cash flows and not human beings.

But I decided to look past all of this in hopes that I was just overthinking. I received a link to be set up in their tenant portal. The first strange thing I noticed in the portal was that the app showed a past charge of $35 for the application fee, but my receipt and credit card statement showed a $40 charge. Not a big deal but I was wondering who pocketed that extra $5, and was afraid to ask in fear it may upset Izzy.

So, I’m getting ready to set up my portal and review the lease, but the app wants me to pay a $4200 deposit before proceeding. I thought this was strange and was hesitant to ask about it but decided it was worth a shot. I had never done it this way, but was open to it if there was a good explanation. Izzy and I had spoken several times and like I said, he encouraged me to ask any questions I needed in order to feel comfortable. Turns out, asking if I could see the lease before paying $4200 was enough to get my account locked and told they are no longer interested in my tenancy as it was indicative of some sort of trend with me. While this was confusing to me as I truly didn’t think it was that unreasonable of an ask, I’m glad his true colors showed before I gave them any more of my money. Izzy Reyes wants people who will pay up and shut up. I highly question the legitimacy of his company - who’s to say I would have gotten my $4200 back if I then reviewed the lease and there was some crazy clause in there? He pushes and pushes for his prospects to ask questions, but has 0 patience when it comes time to give answers.

So please, save yourself the time, stress, money, and headache and go somewhere else, before you get scammed out of thousands like I almost did.

Since early March I've been trying to get a showing of an apartment they had listed. After a few weeks of reaching out through several different methods they finally got back to me and told me it's being renovated until the end of April. I messaged them through facebook in mid-April to remind them of my interest which they read and promptly ignored. I saw that they had re-listed the apartment on April 23rd (of course without contacting me) so I reached out to them yet again and I was send a text with all of the details for rental and then ignored again until this morning when they let me know the apartment has been rented out. Seems pretty obvious to me they were fishing for section 8 applicants. Between all of the negative reviews and the deplorable way they conduct business, if that doesn't spell slumlord to you then I don't know what does.