Fewer searches, fewer sales

One natural consequence of the housing downturn: Fewer people are searching the Internet for information about homes.

A researcher for Hitwise, which analyzes Internet traffic, charted searches including the term "homes for sale" as a share of all Internet searches. The researcher, Heather Hopkins, writes that "homes for sale" is the most commonly used real estate search term, excluding searches for a particular brand name.

The chart above shows the trend in search data (the blue line) compared to the pace of home sales (the orange line) as reported by the National Association of Realtors.

Perhaps the most interesting question about this data, raised by a blogger at trade pub Inman News, is whether search volume can be used as a leading indicator of sales activity.

In other words, will the first sign of a real estate recovery be more people typing "homes for sale" into Google?

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