CENTURY 21 Professionals

Four decades on the same square of Braintree, and a public review trail you could count on one hand. CENTURY 21 Professionals works out of 817 Washington Street in South Braintree as an independently owned and operated CENTURY 21 franchise, representing buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants across the South Shore. The company tells its own origin story in detail: started in the mid-1980s as CENTURY 21 Downing & Associates by Patricia Downing, then renamed in 2000 when Kimberly Allard became an equal partner. Allard is the Broker/Owner, which her BBB listing shows too. Outside its own site, there isn't much to go on. Google shows a 4.5-star average built on two ratings, and the one written review there dates to last year. The brokerage also turns up in a Boston real-estate deal thread on Reddit, named on the buyer's side of a South Shore sale — an unsolicited passing reference, not a review. Its BBB page carries an A+ letter grade; that same page shows the business is not BBB-accredited, which the Bureau describes as a business's own choice rather than a mark against it. One number is worth reconciling before you call. The site claims more than 40 years in business, while the BBB profile lists 24, with a business start date of March 2002. Ask which entity that longer history belongs to. The credential list — REALTOR®, South Shore REALTORS®, the state and national associations, MLS PIN, and a stated 15-plus designations — comes from the company itself. This is a sensible call for a South Shore buyer or seller who wants a small, long-standing local office with the owner still working deals. Because so little of that history is public, ask for recent closings in your own town and the names of the agents who handled them.