Anzalone Realty

Two names carry nearly every recent review of Anzalone Realty: Mario and Katerina. Across 72 Google ratings averaging 4.9, the story renters tell repeats almost word for word — a text answered fast, several showings stacked into one afternoon, a lease signed before the deadline they were panicking about. The office sits at 383 Hanover Street, in the middle of Boston's North End, and handles rentals, sales and property management. Its own site says it has served the neighborhood for over 30 years. Its BBB listing puts the business start date at 1991, counts six employees, and names Joann Anzalone as owner. Rentals are plainly the bulk of the work, and the last six months have been uniformly good ones: every review in that window is five stars. One renter this summer said the agent got the owner to repaint the whole apartment and replace the carpeting before move-in. Another signed sight unseen in March, doing the paperwork remotely from out of state. A third wrote that there was no pressure at all on the tours — the agent wanted her in the right apartment whether or not it came through him. Speed comes up constantly: agents texting back the same day, tag-teaming showings when a renter is on a clock, chasing a lease signature through the last mile. The sales half of the business shows up mainly through a 2024 r/tradedboston post naming Anzalone Realty as the broker on a $1.69 million multifamily deal on Cooper Street. Two things are worth raising before you call. Further back in the review history, one renter described the opposite experience — an agent who was hard to reach when it mattered, with useful details arriving only shortly before move-in. And in a 2023 r/boston thread, a commenter who had no prior dealings with the office called an upfront deposit request a scam; other commenters in that same thread said they had rented through Anzalone, that the agent in question was listed on the company's website, and that a deposit check was held uncashed until approval. Nothing there was ever established as fraud, but it is a fair reason to pin down when money is due and what it commits you to. If you are chasing a North End rental on a short clock, particularly from out of state, this is a reasonable office to call. Ask which agent you will actually be working with — the praise is concentrated on a couple of people — and get the deposit timing in writing before you send anything.