On any given day, probably no more than 12-15% of the available apartments are advertised in the NY Times. Most of the rest are scattered across the various individual broker web sites.

There are currently several thousand brokers in Manhattan, with more than 275 of them maintaining multiple active property listings and, collectively, employing well over 20,000 licensed agents. A lot of these are neighborhood brokers who operate out of small, quaint little offices that have a charm all their own. Usually their exclusive listings tend to be relatively small in number and concentrated in (though not limited to) the neighborhoods they specialize in.

These might be called the Boutique Brokers, and there are some good ones. It’s important to note that even though these firms don’t have as many in-house listings as the big outfits – their subscription to the RLS database allows them access to virtually everything on the market. They can help you find an apartment just as efficiently as an agent employed by one of the larger firms.

But for ease of finding listings on your own, it is probably fortunate (from the point of view of a buyer), that a dozen or so large, citywide brokers have the bulk of the listings. So if you're that independent type of buyer who wants to try and find an apartment on your own, researching the websites of the larger brokers will expose you to a good percent of what is on the market at any given time.

Some of the bigger players in Manhattan are:

www.brownharrisstevens.com
www.corcoran.com
www.halstead.com
www.bellmarc.com
www.elliman.com
www.citi-habitats.com
www.striblingny.com
www.cbhk.com
www.benjaminjames.com
www.warburgrealty.com

So you now know the websites where a lot of properties (though not all) can be found. The question boils down to: do you have the Time, Knowledge and Experience to do it on your own?

Our website has the potential to make you quite knowledgeable. But the process remains complicated and time consuming. As we've seen, there are lots of individual websites to search. A broker has in effect 275 individual databases available in one shared site.

Can you on your own find the best apartments quickly without losing out (which happens often) to another buyer? Would you be more comfortable with a guide that knows the ins-and-outs of the process and can take care of the details necessary to completing a purchase? Do you feel confident that you can access sales data through your own examination of public records and creative sleuthing to make savvy purchase offers supported by recent relevant sales data? Are you comfortable with your negotiating skills?

When it comes time to put together a Board package, are you confident you can present yourself in the best light possible? There is a bit of an art in filling them out, and some experience helps.

There are no right or wrong answers to the questions we pose. Our intent, of course, is to get you thinking about the challenges of going it alone. If you’re that type of person, we applaud you and wish you the best. You can succeed with time, guts and knowledge.

For the rest of you, find an agent based on a glowing reference from a trusted friend.

Or if you like, please email us at bluepearlconsulting@msn.com and we'll recommend several good ones to interview for the job.

Or if you would like someone to coordinate everything for you, all aspects of locating, buying, financing, even remodeling – email us and ask about our consulting services

Lastly, we want to emphasize, that if you do want to work with an agent, there is no necessary correlation between size of a brokerage firm and the quality of the agent.

A final note: The seller pays a fee (usually 6% of the sales price) that compensates your broker and the selling broker. Normally there are no out of pocket costs to you, the buyer, for the services of an agent.

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