The End of The Recession In The Dallas Housing Market? Ask Google.
As every one and their dog tries to predict the future of the economy and whether the recession is over, straight data from Google provides some startling results.
From 2005 to 2009 the number of times “Dallas homes” was searched in Google in month A had a statistically significant correlation with the number of Dallas homes sold in month A + 3. For example, the number of times Dallas homes was searched in January (Month A) of 2006 had statistically significant correlation with the number of homes sold in Dallas in April of 2006 (Month A + 3).
Check out the graph:
The correlation is statistically significant just comparing month to month, but it grows stronger when you compare month A to month A + 3.
Could people’s internet habits be used to predict housing market trends in Texas in the future? Could this be used to predict an end to the housing market recession?
The correlation holds strong for the major Texas cities for which Google provides data- Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. For all of them correlation is strong at month to month, but grows even stronger with the three month interval.
Here is the data, pulled from Google Trends and The Real Estate Center at Texas A&M:
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