Well its been a while since I looked at the seasonal search patterns tied to real estate via Google – very cool way to parse out consumer thinking on specific topics.

Real Estate

Clearly the surge of interest begins January 1 of each year but its also interesting to see total search volume slide since 2005. What’s even more interesting is to observe 2010 search levels, while consistent in pattern to prior years, is at its lowest level since the series began in 2004. Recovery?

Rental

“Rental” follows the same pattern as the overall real estate category – strong surge at beginning of the year, sharp fall off at end of year. The decline is not nearly as pronounced as “real estate”.

Jobs

“Jobs” as a search term has been climbing since 2008 with some strange spikes in queries in recent months. This criteria seems to be the inverse of the “real estate” and “rental” trends.

Unemployment

“Unemployment” shows no seasonality – only a steep climb since mid-2008.

Luxury Goods

“Luxury goods” has shown a steady decline since peaking in 2005. Strange – I would have thought it would have peaked in 2007 or 2008 since credit enabled a “luxury” culture that wasn’t sustainable.

Mortgage

“Mortgage” begain to spike in 2008 and continued in 2009 as the lending net cast by banks for mortgages shrunk considerably. I believe the low level of queries reflects the frustration associated with tight credit – that the public doesn’t think things will improve soon and therefore search activity is at its lowest since 2004 when this series began.