how do you keep track of open houses?

no one?

There's really no easy way....I start looking Thursday for the coming Sunday and paste addresses of interest into my calendar....After viewing, I keep notes in an Access database with floorplans for future reference....sort of works.....

mjsalisb - thanks i do something similar, using excel. just wish someone would have a magic way to make this easier...

All those sites you mention have email alerts. If your neighborhood only lists on NYTimes.com, just register for the alerts. Do a search on NYT for open house in the neighborhood with the criteria you are interested in. Then save your search as an email alert. You will be emailed an alert with open houses for that criteria.

I hate doing searches on NYTimes.com b/c they don't let you just search for Condos. Coops ALWAYS come up too & then I have to waste a ton of time dividing the two, it just isn't worth it for me. And propertyshark.com doesn't seem to update their listings as quickly as streeteasy and trulia, I just don't like the interface there so I never search it. As for keeping track of all the Open Houses I want to go to, I just use a good old fashioned notebook and then after I go to the Open House for the property I listed, I make notes about it.

@LuchiasDream -- I'm not sure I understand. I've always been able to search for just condos on NYTimes -- it's an option on the Advanced Search page.

But I certainly agree about the good old pen and paper. I just write the apartments I want to see on a post-it with the times, and then go see them. Usually save the sale sheets, and write comments on them -- have a small folder with them all.

Well, tandare, don't hate me because I'm beautiful, but all brokers have this nifty little website that lets them search for more open houses than you can possibly imagine, they're all there in one place. If you hook up with a broker your broker should do the work for you.

As a buyer, you will not pay any extra for that service, because the listing broker gets a percentage from the sale and the buyer's broker gets half of whatever that percentage is. That's called "co-broke" and in this market especially it's wildly popular.

To really do this to your advantage, get a buyer's broker agreement from that broker, which makes him or her *your* agent with a responsibility to get the best price and best terms for *you.* Absent that piece of paper, in New York all brokers work for the seller--that sucks, but that's the way it is.

The downside about signing with a buyer's broker is that your broker is now involved in any deal you do. So even if you and an owner without a broker do a deal, you will still owe a commission to your buyer's broker (unless your agreement says otherwise of course. Everything is negotiable, so you might want to get that exception written in.)

{Manhattan real estate agent. 917. 365. 0876}

Before I found SE (which has all the OH's I'm interested in) I used to use Google Maps where you can create your own map. It was essentially the same thing SE does for you (if the OH is listed on SE).

fluter - i don't hate you, but we are already working with 2 buyer's brokers (they don't handle the same geogrpahic areas so they are aware of each other). still, i need to do 80% of my own footwork.

I'm not sure what you're referring to though, Buyer's brokers are never paid by the buyer. The seller pays all broker's fees - the seller's and buyer's brokers agree previously to split the fee.