Do Google Searches Predict the Direction of Home Prices?

• June 13th 2011

by UrbanTurf Staff

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Courtesy of the always interesting New York Times blog Economix comes news of a report from the Bank of England which concludes that there is “a strong correlation between how often people search online in England for ‘estate agents’ and actual house prices.” (Estate agents are what the Brits call real estate agents.) The bank has started tracking Google searches for terms related to the housing and job market in an effort to get a more current picture of the country’s economy.

As the chart below illustrates, there does seem to be a relation between the search term estate agent and home prices.

The data is by no means 100% accurate, and the authors of the report admit its limitations (there is only a short backrun, there is no information on the actual volume of searches, etc.). Nevertheless, the report concludes that the data can be useful:

In line with studies for other countries, internet search data can help predict changes in unemployment in the United Kingdom. These appear to be as useful as existing indicators. For house prices, the results are somewhat stronger: search term variables can outperform some existing indicators over the period since 2004.

For the full report, click here.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.production.logicbrush.com/articles/blog/do_google_searches_determine_the_direction_of_home_prices/3651.