I have completely given up on Yahoo’s real estate service. Here in the bay area they use ZipRealty as a provider for the service, but since I signed up (you need to register to even browse the listings) I have had my account repeatedly deactivated preventing me from searching. Since my time for searching is usually very late at night, the number they provide to re-activate the account is not useful and there’s no online way to re-activate the account.

So, I have switched to a service that provides all the same access to the listings, and does so without the need for registration: Realtor.com. If you do register (free of charge, of course, but you’ll need to give them an email address etc), then you can save properties that you are interested in and even the search terms (useful if you go to town on the all the options).

All in all, I have been very impressed by their service, at least as good, if not better, than the ZipRealty service, and without the annoying spam email from an agent who wanted to pressure me into buying and then de-activates my account because I haven’t found a place I want to look at that is also in my price range. Not a good way to get sales if you ask me…