I’ve been meaning to write a post about my progress of looking for a suitable flat for quite some time but couldn’t get around to it. Now, a few weeks later, it’s definitely time for an update about where we are.
We’ve visited seven flats until now, had, in addition to that, three visits cancelled on us because the flats were taken prior to our meeting and there is another visit scheduled for this coming Sunday. Of course, using immobilienscout24.de, we’ve done a thorough pre-selection according to our criteria explained in a previous post. In the end, all flats we visited are located in the area close to the main station but not too close either. Four of the eight flats are ones we’ll apply to – applications will go out this weekend – and there’s a clear favourite. Question is now only whether our application can convince the owner that we’re great people, totally calm, totally willing (and able) to pay the rent every single month and that we won’t be a bother for them. We’ll see, I guess.
Now, to the tools I used to get us where we are now: just before beginning to seriously search for a flat, I discovered Evernote 3.5 and immediately put it to use to store all information relating to the possible flats in addition to opening an account with immobilienscout24.de to save the flats. Using Evernote, despite the web clipper, was a bit of work, but it allowed me to use tags to sort through the images and text files and made it easy to find information quickly. It also has an iPhone app and since my spouse has a new iPhone, we tried that out as well. It worked reasonably well, but sifting through a couple hundred files – I had stored other information in Evernote by then as well – was painful, since the tags are useless in the iPhone app. One can’t search using them, one has to go merely by image or title of a file to find what one is looking for. At least, it allows to group files according to notebooks, but that is, alas, not sufficient to really use it for consultating files.
Eventually, it became too bothersome and just wasn’t practical while on the move – as weird as this may sound. So I returned to a little more oldfashioned tool: Excel. To draw comparisons, a spreadsheet really is the best option. Plus, you can easily print out the tables. :) Carrying around a piece of paper also doesn’t put you in danger of running out of power, making it impossible to jot down notes. So it’s an Excel table that I use during the flat visits as well, taking down important information about the flat.
A few days ago, I also noticed a functionality within immobilienscout24.de which is not obvious on the first point of view. When you click on “My notes” on your list of remembered flats, there’s a pop-up where you can check boxes whether you have already contacted the realtor, set up a date to visit the flat or have visited it. There is also a field to enter a comment. I’ve found this to be extremely useful and have noted general impressions about the flats after visiting them. Of course, for setting up the appointments, I used Google Calendar.
In the end, a basic Excel sheet, a calendar and some well hidden functionalities of the realty website are quite enough to organise the flat hunt. Of course, once we actually do get one of the flats, the fun part will start: arranging furniture. :)
