Real Estate Prognosticators Turn to Search Engine Entrails

On their blog, Estately makes a bold prediction about spring real estate sales (boldface is theirs):

Spring and summer of 2010 will be different! Every year, there is an annual increase in people searching for real estate from December to January. But this year we are seeing a much bigger bump – 80% bigger.  This year we are seeing 40% more people searching for homes on Estately in January than we were in December.

Seattle's seasonal bump in traffic is among the top, at 55 percent, Estately says. They expect a slow January, agreeing with the Seattle Bubble that the $8,000 homebuyer credit hoovered up a lot of future demand, as people decided to buy before the cut-off deadline (since extended).

They also argue that they outrank Google Trends in this department because they're an MLS-based search site, which cuts down a lot of media noise having to do with real estate market ups and downs, rather than prospective buyer searches. (In a tongue-in-cheek way, Seattle Bubble's The Tim suggests that Google's search trends may finally allow us to see Robert Schiller's "animal spirits" in action.)

Seattle Bubble actually agrees to some extent with the prediction for a spring surge, but points out that the tax credit may be a harsh mistress: "I can see February through April being better, but if the Fed’s MBS purchases really end and no new tax credit is enacted, I think there is a distinct possibility that sales will drop to frigid levels again, pushing prices even further down."