Google As A Predictor of Future Home Sales?

With all that data Google collects on its users and what we’re searching for, is it possible they could forecast the future? Google as a modern day Nostradamus?

There are several factors, both locally and nationally, that are pointing to an increase in real estate sales.

• The number of home closings
• Number of homes going under contract
• Number of homes being looked at
• and now, the number of homes being searched

Using data from Google Trends, a product that shows popular searches across the Google platform, we can now discover just how many people out there are getting ready to buy a home.

As you can see from this chart, the number of people “buying a home“, or searching a variant of that, was up in January over the previous two years.

Keep in mind, this doesn’t represent a number of searches, or people, just the mindshare that topic holds as compared to other things people are searching for.

Nevertheless, it would appear that this topic has spiked and will ultimately lead to positive things for the real estate market.

What are your thoughts on using this data as an indicator of things to come? Leave us a comment down below and let us know if it’s something to keep an eye on, or just an anomaly.