Here is the monthly report for where surfers were looking for real estate on REindex.com, The Site Engine® in November.  There are two reports about where people are looking for real estate that are interesting.  I was glad to see Alabama on one of the reports having gone there myself to search for deals.

The first of the reports is the top ten states for search activity ranked strictly by the number of pages viewed on REindex.  This particular report is interesting because it indicates where people are searching.  It is a report that is ahead of transactions, ahead of permit applications, a head of loan applications, and similar "after the fact" data.  This is a type of predictor report that may indicate where the next active markets might be found.  It is based on the places people are looking and not based on closings or applications of any type.

The top states in this report are: New York, Illinios, Pennsylvania, Texas, California, Iowa, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia, and Florida.  As you can see, the states in this version of the search report are mostly states with a large number of cities and towns in them.  For example, New York has over 1600 towns and cities.  Because they have more towns, these states will have a tendency to be found "more often" than smaller states.

So, another way to look at the search results is to weight the results by the size of each state.  For example, the 100 cities and towns in Nevada would have a better chance at a high ranking on this report based on the number of searches per the number of cities available to be found.  This weighted list of top states contains: Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Hawaii, Alabama, Utah, South Carolina, Delaware, Maryland and Iowa.

Iowa is the only state on both lists this month.  That may be the best place to research the economy, projected growth, and investment trends.  The other 19 states on the lists are also places to consider when trying to decide where to look for good investments or re-locations.  If you have a job offer from a company in one of these states versus another, the long term outlook may be more positive.  States not on either list may also be good places to look, but people may not be talking about them enough yet.

Happy listing and selling!