What Google Searches Reveal About The Housing Market

• September 2nd 2014

by Lark Turner

A recent Google analysis that looked at trends in home searches offers some interesting insight into what’s next for the housing market.

Think With Google, a site run by the massive search engine that analyzes search trends, looked into the home buying market using recent data from Google searches, company-run surveys and information from Internet research company ComScore, among other sources. Here’s what they found:

Millennial home searches are starting to pick up

A Google survey showed 18–34-year-olds were twice as likely as 35–54-year-olds to say they were planning to buy a home in the next year, and real estate web usage by millennials grew by 30 percent between May 2013 and July 2014, according to ComScore. One thing that’s important to these buyers? Access to high-speed Internet, according to a Move.com survey.

Tiny homes and mobile living are growing in popularity

More and more people are interested in living small and mobile, according to the analysis. Since 2011, Google data shows that searches focused on mobile homes and small house living have been on the rise. Meanwhile, searches for the terms “loft” and “townhouse” are dropping. As the analysis points out, the mobile homes that people are searching for are likely not what come to mind for most people, as they are often decked out with high-end finishings and design. (Look no further than this NYT story on million-dollar mobile homes featured in today’s must reads for more.)

The analysis also sheds light on the kind of people for whom a mobile or small space lifestyle holds an attraction. People who search for the term “small house” are more likely to conduct searches on gardening, woodworking and knitting, while those plugging in “mobile home” are more likely to search for hiking, bird-watching and the term “outdoor.”

Prospective buyers are increasingly using mobile devices to check out homes

The share of home searching that’s taking place on mobile devices keeps increasing. And home searches in general are on the rise after falling off during the winter months.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of those mobile searches — about half — relate to the term “mortgage calculator.” Next time you need one, here’s one of our favorites.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/google_trends_in_homebuyers_searches/8919.