DMNews.com | News | Article

DMNews.com | News | Article: "Recent online search behavior suggests that consumers are as concerned about a real estate bubble as the media.
Searches on the terms 'real estate bubble' and 'housing bubble' climbed to a 12-month high for the week ending May 28, according to online monitoring service Hitwise, New York.
Hitwise said the market share of those two terms across search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN jumped 311 percent and 174 percent for the weeks ending May 28 and May 21, respectively.
'Increased traffic on real estate Web sites is reflective of the sector's growing adoption of Web-based technologies and databases, often used for digital storefronts, marketing, inventory listings and buyer financing,' Bill Tancer, Hitwise vice president of research, said in a statement. "

....Hitwise data indicate that search activity is fast becoming a bellwether of consumer moods.

"Recent Internet search activity suggests that some activity in the category is being driven by curiosity of rising property values and the possibility of a bursting bubble," Tancer said in the statement. "Should we undergo a decline, it will be interesting to see how site traffic and search activity correspond."

It's more and more possible to do research on the web about customer behavior (ie: using Yahoo! Buzz or HitWise). HitWise is a fairly expensive solution that I'd love to have, but it's out of reach of most SEO people.