Can Google Predict the Real Estate Market?
December 2, 2008
Can we find out what consumers are interested in by what they are searching for?
Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends) allows the user to compare the volume of searches between a time period and region. Although, it may not be all that scientific I believe there is a lot we can learn.
It is as easy as inputting a keyword and Google Trends will graph its popularity as a search term for you since 2004. It’ll also break down its use by geographic location.
Here are a couple of examples:
Track the Elections? click here
Track the Flu? click here
So how accurate can it predict the real estate market? Based on Google’s results there seems to be a spike of people searching for the keyword “Real Estate” right at the end of the year. What does this mean? Well we can only assume that most people have some free time during the holidays and have some time to search for that house they will be looking for and maybe purchasing the next year.
We are currently in that lowest point on the search for “Real Estate”….will the trend spike this year? We can only wait and see, but it just might be the right time to do some extra marketing for your property.
April 11, 2009 at 7:55 am
Very well written. This is the kind of information that is useful to those want to increase their SERP’s. Keep up the good work.
April 24, 2009 at 11:01 am
I noticed that this is not the first time at all that you write about the topic. Why have you decided to write about it again?
June 6, 2009 at 9:44 am
great article. I think you can make very good predictions about financials bu just looking at the seach results. great idea.