Our City Realty

Which agent picks up the phone matters more here than almost anything else. Our City Realty is a Somerville storefront on Broadway that does one thing — apartment leasing — placing tenants and marketing landlords' rentals across Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, Charlestown and Medford. It is not a home-sales brokerage; its own site describes rental work only. Its Massachusetts real estate broker licence is active. The praise is consistent and it has names attached. Derek Powers, the owner, comes up again and again: a 2024 renter said he "very much advocated for us" in a search between Cambridge and Somerville, and another that year, having dealt with him both as a tenant whose apartment he was showing and later as a client, called him refreshingly honest and extremely responsive. Both 2026 reviews name an agent called Marc — one describes him getting a Zillow listing shown fast and staying communicative through a high-interest scramble. The complaints have names too, and they cluster. In 2023, one reviewer said an agent was on his phone through the entire showing, was standoffish, and had no answers to basic questions; another that same spring said the agent did not know the unit number, arrived twenty minutes late, and had falsely advertised the apartment as having no fee. A 2022 renter reported no callback after 24 hours and pointed at communication as a running theme. In a 2025 review, a poster said listing photos were from a different building than the one advertised, down to the exterior shot. Google's 3.8 across 26 ratings is the honest middle of those two stories. Nothing negative has been posted in the last six months. For a Somerville or Cambridge renter this is a workable shop — ask for Derek or Marc by name, and get in writing whether the unit carries a broker fee before you view it. Check the listing photos against the actual address, and confirm which unit you're being shown. Landlords listing with them should pin down exactly what the tenant screening covers.