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Google reveals overseas property data

The newly re-launched Google Trends provides a wealth of useful customer data for agents and developers. For the first time, Google Trends is providing comparative volume statistics which allows users to compare consumer demand by region and to track trends over time.

Holiday home buyer trends

The graph below illustrates the relative change in property-related searches for eight popular overseas holiday home destinations over the last five years*. Each curve shows year-on-year search volume for that country compared to its weighted average over the period. It’s the gradient of each curve rather than the relative country volumes that is important. 

 


It comes as no surprise that search volumes declined significantly across all territories between May 2007 and May 2008 compared to the relatively steady picture beforehand. The table below better illustrates the relative decline in search volume per country.

Country	Maximum variance
Turkey	-1.04
Bulgaria	-0.92
Italy	-0.84
Spain	-0.64
France	-0.60
Florida	-0.51
Cyprus	-0.38
Portugal	-0.32

Turkey has seen the biggest variation, perhaps reflecting extensive media coverage of its possible EU membership in 2005 and the subsequent cooling of the EU on the issue. Bulgaria saw the sharpest decline in the past 12 months, probably because it’s always been a price-driven market and those on lower budgets have been put off by the rising Euro. The more popular holiday destinations of Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, France and Florida have remained steadier, although Italy saw a large relative decline, which could be put down to recent negative press coverage on the Italian economy.

Emerging destinations buck the trend

Although search volumes for emerging destinations are often much lower and the data* for these regions does not stretch back five years, emerging overseas property destinations like Dubai and Egypt seem to be bucking the above trend, probably because buyer demographics vary significantly to those of more traditional holiday home buyers.

 

Buyer breakdown by country

Although the Google Trends data has some methodological issues (see below), the breakdown of searches by country of origin and language used over the last 12 months makes interesting reading.  

Ireland leads the way

Despite Ireland’s small size, the Irish lead the way as the biggest group of potential buyers searching for overseas property. They top the table for property searches in Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Turkey and Brazil and appear in the list for every country except Poland and Egypt. UK buyers are next and together, the UK and Ireland account still account for the majority of searches. They may not be buying as much as this time last year but they still account for a large percentage of the market.

Don’t forget the Dutch

Although searches based in the Netherlands or in Dutch are small relative to English language and UK/Ireland based searches, the Dutch have a disproportionate say in the results, given their small population. Dutch is among the top languages used by buyers searching for property in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Dubai and Poland.    

Staying close to home

A key driver in overseas property is convenience and evidence of this can be seen clearly in the results.  The table shows a significant number of Russians are searching for property in Bulgaria and Cyprus while overseas buyers in Thailand are predominantly drawn from Hong Kong and Singapore.

Searched country (click link for details)	Country of origin - Top 5	Top languages
Brazil	Ireland, South Africa, UK, Spain, Brazil, Australia, US, Canada	English, Portuguese, Spanish
Bulgaria	Bulgaria, Ireland, UK, Russia, Spain	Bulgarian, English, Russian, Polish, Spanish
Cyprus	Cyprus, UK, UAE, Ireland, SA	Greek, English, Russian
Dubai	UAE, Pakistan, South Africa, Ireland, UK	Arabic, English, Dutch
Egypt	Egypt, Kuwait, UAE, Australia, Canada	Arabic, English, French, German
Florida	US, Ireland, UK, Canada	English
France	Ireland, UK, France, Australia	English, French
Italy	Ireland, UK, SA, UAE, Australia	English, Italian, Dutch
Poland	Poland, Australia, Canada, UK, Netherlands	Polish, English, Dutch, German
Portugal	Ireland, Portugal, UK, South Africa, Netherlands	English, Portuguese, Dutch
Spain	Ireland, UK, Spain, SA, Netherlands	English, Dutch, Spanish
Thailand	Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Ireland, UAE, UK, Malaysia, Australia, Sweden, India	Thai, English, Swedish, Dutch, German
Turkey	Ireland, UK, Turkey, Spain, Australia	English, Turkish

There are many other ways you can use Google Trends to provide interesting insights. For example, you can compare modifier words like “buy” and “for sale” as we’ve done here. Altogether, it’s a great research and marketing tool for anyone interested in overseas property.

Data limitations

The biggest issue is that Google Trends only reports broad match results. This means that “property in Spain” may also cover “houses in Spain” as well as translations into other languages. It is impossible to tell which phrases Google covers in each search and how accurately it translates in each language. It also does not cover results for phrases with much lower search volumes, although this has improved with the re-launch.  

* The results tables are taken by comparing weighted volumes in the final week of May each year. The results record volumes for the broad match phrase “property in X” where X is the country name.  

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User Comments

What about Mexico? With its countless white sand beaches, major tourist destinations, sub-tropical climate, rest and relaxation driven culture and relative proximity to the US and Canada, Mexico is the perfect real estate investment and the growth trends since the mid-90s have been absolutely exponential. Talk about right under your nose.

Shane Lewis, Auhll & Associates - Puerto Vallarta, Mexico