I’m semi-actively looking around to buy real estate. I don’t have broker and don’t have plans on getting one at the moment. I’m not pre-approved. I’m not even sure exactly what I want to buy. I’m a tire kicker. I go to open houses, and take notes. I think everyone who is at all thinking about buying should be doing some research at all times if they’re anything like me. I purchased a condo 5 years ago. I rent it out now. I’m generally pretty happy with the purchase, but didn’t do everything right when I picked it out. On my next purchase, I want to make sure I get exactly what I want for the price I want. Currently renting in Boston is actually more economic than buying - hence no rush on my part to buy a place, and it’s not like the housing market is hitting new highs.

When I first discovered Zillow, I was in love. Zillow is fantastic for comparing real estate in your neighborhood, but it’s not designed to find properties. Zillow is great for window shopping but not actual buying. Redfin.com on the other hand was designed to help match buyers with properties. If it weren’t for two major shortcomings, Redfin would be enough for me. Redfin does not allow me to search for open houses. Redfin also doesn’t let me search specifically for multifamily homes. While I’m not exclusively looking to buy a multi-family home, I’m certainly interested. I’m also interested in Condos. I want to be able to segment my searches by those two categories

While I’m a fan of both of those sites, I find that I still use Realtor websites.

Realtor.com I actually find the most useful. Both ZipRealty and Realtor.com allow me to can save multiple searches into one account unlike the Coldwell Banker site.  This allows me to login to my account quickly look for a multifamily in Cambridge (the city on the other side of the river from Boston), and then just as quickly search for condos in Boston. Personally I prefer the Realtor.com website, and the fact they don’t assign an Real Estate agent to you upon registration. The only problem with Realtor.com is that I still can’t find open houses. From my limited research, I’ve found that open house listings don’t seem to be shared.  Coldwell banker has a large market share in the Boston area and as a result is the best site for me to find open houses.  However for me to find all open houses, I need to visit multiple Realtor websites.  While there are a number of sites that purport to list open houses, I found them ineffective.