The pandemic spurred some shifting trends in certain homebuyer preferences
Over the past three years, Canadian homebuyers’ online searches have exhibited increases in the terms “houses for sale near me,” “realtors near me,” and “movers near me,” according to an analysis by Point2 Homes.
The study, which used data from Google Trends, found that the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed proximity to the forefront of many prospective homeowners’ minds, even overriding other crucial concerns like affordability.
“Possibly fuelled by the need for more space, searches for ‘houses for sale near me’ took off in 2020 compared to 2019, and kept increasing even in 2021,” Point2 said.
The term saw a 123% jump from 2019 to 2020, and then a more modest 22% increase from 2020 to 2021. Despite the drop-off, the volume of searches still shows that many would-be home buyers are looking to buy their first homes or upgrade to a new one without going too far, Point2 said.
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“The number of average monthly searches for ‘realtors near me,’ ‘contractors near me,’ ‘movers near me,’ and ‘cheap homes for sale’ also went up, with certain phrases actually gaining more ground during 2021,” Point2 said.
“Realtors near me” had some of the largest gains, with 90% annual growth in 2020 and a 132% year over year gain in 2021. “Movers near me” posted large increases as well (89% in 2020 and 125% in 2021), Point2 said.
