Who Is Looking Online?

A post by Nielsen on its news wire reveals that the market is looking better in the US. Not only did new home sales rise again in July, posting the highest numbers since September 2008, but there was also an increase in visitors to the top US real estate websites.

Nielsen says that traffic increased 11 percent month-on-month, from 20.7 million visitors in June to 23.1 million in July. More importantly, year-on-year growth to the sites grew 18 percent.

Despite this good news, Nielsen also reports that online advertising by these top real estate companies declined month-over-month, with online display ads decreasing by 42 percent, from 37.1 million impressions in June 2009 to 21.4 million in July.

Nielsen also provides some interesting stats about just who is looking at real estate online:

“In July, people living in households of just one or two were nearly 50 percent more likely than the average web visitor to head online to check real estate listings. Potential home buyers between the ages of 25 and 34 were 29 percent more likely to visit the top real estate sites and those with no children were 32 percent more likely to check out these sites in July.”

“Surprisingly, despite the fact that lower home prices are affording a wider range of income levels to get into their first home, visitors to the top real estate sites over-indexed among the wealthy, those earning a $100k or more per year.”

It’s looking good for the US but not all countries are experiencing the same growth. Web traffic fell to sites in Italy, France, Spain and Switzerland, but was on the rise in Brazil, the UK, Japan and Germany.

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