Great Stats: Real Estate & Search, Mobile, etc.

I’m a bit late in finding this, but it’s too good not to share even if it is a bit old.

In mid-January, the National Association of REALTORS® published its latest Digital House Hunt report, a joint research effort with Google that’s just filled with interesting data. It should help make the case for online marketing and SEO to any real estate agent that’s still lagging behind in those areas, and should help any SEO consultant/agency that works with real estate clients understand how search fits into the home buying process.

I’ll embed the whole report at the bottom, but I want to call out some of the interesting stats first.

General Search & Real Estate

• real estate-related searches on Google.com grew 22 percent between 2011 and 2012
• real estate searches on Google.com have grown 253 percent over the past four years
• 90 percent of home buyers use the internet as one of their primary research tools
• 52 percent begin their research on the web

Mobile Search & Real Estate

• Google real estate searches on mobile devices grew 120 percent from 2011 to 2012
• about 20 percent of all real estate searches happen on mobile devices
• 49 percent of new home shoppers do mobile searches at the beginning of their research; 40 percent do mobile searches throughout their research
• 44 percent of new home shoppers use mobile apps throughout their research process
• the #1 mobile activity for new home shoppers is getting information about a home; getting directions to a home is the #2 activity
• 77 percent of new home shoppers do mobile home research from home; 31 percent do so at work
• home builder-related searches on tablets grew 362 percent year-over-year
• real estate broker-related searches on tablets grew 300 percent year-over-year

Here’s a graph from the report that illustrates the third and fourth bullet points above.

Real Estate Search & Conversion

• 69 percent of home shoppers who take action on a real estate brand site begin their research with a local search term on a search engine (i.e., “Houston homes for sale”)
• 52 percent of actions on a real estate brand site come directly from a local search on a search engine
• home buying is a long process, but 24 percent of new home shoppers complete an action on a real estate website the day that they begin their research

“Actions” include things like registering on a real estate site, sharing a listing, submitting a lead form, etc.

Real Estate Video Search

• finding an agent and agent-related searches on YouTube grew 46 percent year-over-year
• 86 percent of home shoppers use video to learn more about a community
• 70 percent of home shoppers use video to tour inside a home

Some of the data are from 8,501 responses to a National Association of REALTORS survey in July 2012, and other numbers are from Google internal search data at the same time (Q3 2012). You can see the methodology toward the end of the report. Here it is – enjoy.

Study Digital House Hunt 2013 01 by REALTORS®

(Stock image via Shutterstock.com. Used under license.)