I've found most real estate apps to be lacking and wondering if anyone has come across or developed a system (i.e. spreadsheet or mobile app) to help organize their home search? Seems pretty basic, but other than populating a spreadsheet manually (time consuming) I don't know of a better way. Things I like to track / record:

- Street Address
- City
- Neighborhood
- MLS #
- MLS URL
- Public URL
- Date viewed
- Price
- Date re-viewed
- Updated price
- Showing (Date, Pending, No)
- Commute time (manually determined via Google)
- House Size
- Lot Size
- # Rooms
- Bed/Bath
- Consider Purchase (No, Yes, Possible)
- Other miscellaneous stuff that is less important

6/26/2019 9:12:04 AM

I did that with google docs with slightly different columns. I shared the doc with my realtor so she could arrange showings and update status

6/26/2019 9:40:02 AM

has the market slowed down enough that there is even time to organize anything like this?

6/26/2019 10:00:33 AM

commute time would be nice.

[Edited on June 26, 2019 at 2:54 PM. Reason : ]

6/26/2019 2:54:30 PM

^^depends on the home; but at the pace I moved, I'd never have a shot at those lightning fast sales anyways.

^it's one of my primary considerations and I wished RE apps did a better job with it.

6/27/2019 8:50:56 AM

This seems like total over-analysis. I love a good spreadsheet but if you take time to enter all that info, view and re-view a house, etc someone else is going to buy it. It also seems like you haven’t really honed in on what / where / price range if you really need to track all that data. Narrowing your needs might be a first step.

When we bought our house last year we used the Realtor.com app exclusively. You can save your search terms and view results filtered by map area. The saved search addresses most of your list. Map area results address commute time. If it’s in a good area and not a piece of crap it’s likely going to sell in under a week (in Raleigh, idk where you’re looking).

Good luck. We looked for 2 years before finally pulling the trigger but we were purposefully being pretty picky.

6/29/2019 3:15:05 PM

we just did as specific of a search as we could within the MLS and got alerts whenever something hit the market that matched the criteria. the main thing was setting the central area and the radius of the search. was able to save multiple searches with differing criteria, so we got just the stuff we wanted. MLS direct is the way to go, I think.

7/2/2019 10:04:47 AM

I guess some of that works if you have very specific criteria, location etc. I don't and won't.

And some of you all are over estimating this market. Sure, a few homes are sold < 1-2 days, a few more < 7-days, but the average DOM is like 40 days. I got time to document a few things to keep organized. Sure, if the perfect house comes on the market at the right price, I'm not going to waste time. Until then, it's nice to have a log of homes, toured / not toured, and basic info. Also helps with comparisons and jogging memory.

7/3/2019 7:03:02 AM

surely that DOM average has to include the junkers that sit for months without offers, anything over 7 days hasn't been sold for a reason

7/3/2019 10:00:18 AM

It does. Safe bets are < 14 DOM. Many are still in the 20-30 and mostly due to being overpriced (still wanting the $ from the peak last year, but there's too much inventory).

7/3/2019 11:08:52 AM

as someone who is all about analysis, if this is the house you're going to live in and isn't just an investment, the house you want won't require "memory jogging." you'll know pretty quick and it'll stick out in your mind

7/11/2019 9:08:44 AM

unless you're a realtor, I don't understand why you'd need data on "toured / not toured". care to unpack that?

7/11/2019 1:25:08 PM

you don't think it would be helpful to have a field for if you've seen the house so you could view houses you haven't seen yet, or only houses you've seen?

7/12/2019 10:41:18 AM

also helpful so I know what to send to the realtor for future showings. Some homes run together when you're looking in the same communities with similar homes. Especially new construction.

[Edited on July 16, 2019 at 2:17 PM. Reason : .]

7/16/2019 2:16:23 PM