What tools did you use to track and manage your house or flat hunt?

microMenager

I'm not great with organisation, especially with things I'm not particularly excited about. I'm currently looking for a new home and finding the whole process surprisingly hard to manage.

When I start searching I end up with tabs open on Rightmove and Zoopla and can never remember which ones I've already looked at, or whether that three-bed with the garden was the one on Rightmove or the one I saw on Zoopla. Trying to compare them when they're scattered across different sites is a nightmare.

Then once you start booking viewings it gets worse. Introductions to agents, scheduling appointments, organising how to get there, staying in contact afterwards. When you have more than four or five on the go they become a bit of a blur. Especially when each agent starts recommending other properties to you, and if the process spans weeks or months, I lose track of what I've seen, what I thought of each place, and what's still worth pursuing.

I know that to get the best result you should view as many properties as you can — but the more I view, the harder it is to keep everything straight.

What does everyone else use to stay on top of it all? Spreadsheets? Apps? Just a good memory?

El_Torro

I was looking last year and found having a free account with Rightmove was all I needed. You can write notes against properties so you can keep track of upcoming appointments, places you've viewed, what you thought of the place, etc…

I only looked on Rightmove, not Zoopla. If you use both I guess it can get confusing if you bookmark the same property on both sites.

elsien

I don’t particularly agree that the more you see the better, because then decision making paralysis can kick in. If something is worth pursuing then I’d expect it to be reasonably memorable.

If not then I suggest your house hunting is starting to lack focus?

RelievedSheff

We just used Rightmove. Pretty much all property in our area is on there.

We were only looking in a small area for a fairly fixed set of criteria so our pool of houses to choose from wasn't huge which helped in many ways.

As luck would have it exactly what we were looking for came to the market in late November and they accepted our offer even though at the time we didn't have an offer on our house. Aiming for completion next month.

I would really try to narrow down what you want from the property. If it doesn't have it discount it.

UnsureAboutthis

We used Rightmove and their alerts, looked at sold prices, looked on the map areas we liked or so we thought, and visted those areas during the week, on the weekend, and at nighttime when kids are likely to hang around shops. We haave a very good idea what we wanted or the potential, and it had to be 'chain free.'

Along with the above we wanted a house all done up which was highly unlikely to be done up as we wanted and in the locations/size/area/budget so we worked on property that was structurally sound, had a nice area and OSP or potential for 3/4 cars and looked at 2/3 places every time we moved - we put in a very low off, then a better one and one about 10% below market value and say its our final, final offer and so far, we have got the places we wanted.

Almost forgot, even once our offer's accepted, we drive past the property for a few nights and park up the roads to try and ensure that next door is not a neibour from hell. Of course you can't tell at times, and people move but it has worked for us. We've not moved for about 14/15 years and new laws about the seller having to declare problems etc imo are good/helpful

twopenny

Had an idea what I wanted or didn't want.

Walked the area for noise, vans etc. access to shops

some places looked good from the outside but were in the shade, noisy neighbours , gardens that you could ski down.

Can pretty much tell what might suit then walk the streets around it. It's not a bad idea to copy picture and notes as to why you've rejected it or what's good to narrow down options before viewing. Only view when you think something suits

Sounds to me like you don't have what want in your head so you're taking a scatter gun approach.

You can change a house but you can't change what the location is like.

ka7e

If you sign up to an online account with Rightmove, it lets you save properties to "My Rightmove". You can write notes for each property and even save SSTC properties if you want to track sales in a certain location/road.

You can use the satellite maps to check out orientation and nearby facilities, and the streetview to check out the state of the neighbourhood - with the proviso that some may not have been updated in over a decade.

Obviously nothing beats eyes on the area, but Rightmove seems to have a lot of tools to help narrow the field of suitable properties.

jimi_man

We used Rightmove to save the properties and write notes on. We did drivebys of around 40 or so and viewed around 20. However exactly half of those were when we had a buyer that dropped out before we could put in an offer. It wasn’t for another four months that we started looking again when we got another buyer. Viewed another (different) ten and bought one of those.

Maahes

Nothing other than Right Move and a friend who knew the areas I planned to buy in (I'd never visited the area before). I never had more than three houses on my list and in the end drove 200 miles, viewed two properties, offered on the the house I currently live in and drove 200 miles home the same day, returning only to pick the keys up the day after completion. I've been here for two and a half years and couldn't be happier.

Flugelhorn

I use rightmove and a diary (a paper one)

SiliconChip

Spreadsheet of property location, price, brief description, Rightmove reference, EA contact, viewing date.