The Real Estate Wonk: Rating the home-search sites - Baltimore homes, apartments, real estate: Buying, selling, renting and housing news from reporter Jamie Smith Hopkins

The Baltimore Sun > Business > Real Estate > The Real Estate Wonk

« Don't forget about closing costs | Main | How-to Monday: International lookylooing »

August 24, 2008

Rating the home-search sites

Odds are, you've searched for homes online at some point -- either to buy, to get intelligence so you could sell or to satisfy your curiosity. What sites did you find useful? Clever? Frustrating?

The Baltimore Sun's real estate section spent time checking out sites recently -- from Realtor.com to Homesdatabase.com -- and rates them in a story today. The criteria:

We evaluated the sites based on a variety of elements, including how easy it was to find homes within our search parameters and how accessible the listing was, how many clicks we had to endure, and if there was helpful and meaningful information about neighborhoods and schools. Although we included the number of homes that each site turned up, it did not figure heavily in our criteria.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Comments

franklymls.com is a great site that they missed! I've done countless searches on their spreadsheet format. I haven't found another site that lists DOM and tax assessments as clearly as they do.

Posted by: Kevin R | August 24, 2008 12:09 PM

Check out CondoAuthority.com to search for new condos in and around Baltimore and DC.

Posted by: JT | August 25, 2008 10:05 AM

Redfin.com is another great site for Baltimore housing market searchs.

Posted by: Wayne V | August 25, 2008 10:26 AM

Agreed franklymls.com is unmatched. Fast, clean, simple.

Posted by: Brian | August 25, 2008 11:01 AM

Post a comment

All comments must be approved by the blog author. Name-calling aimed at other commenters is not welcome here. Please do not resubmit comments if they do not immediately appear. You are not required to use your full name when posting, but you should use a real e-mail address. Comments may be republished in print, but we will not publish your e-mail address. Our full Terms of Service are available here.

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments:

Verification (needed to reduce spam):

About Jamie Smith Hopkins

Jamie Smith Hopkins, a Baltimore Sun reporter since 1999, writes about the regional economy. Her reporting on the housing market has won national and local awards. Hopkins is a Columbia native and has lived in Maryland all her life, save for 10 months spent covering schools in Ames, Iowa.
She trained to become a wonk by spending large chunks of time as a geek and an insufferable know-it-all.
• Baltimore Sun articles by Jamie

Follow @realestatewonk on Twitter