In December 2008, while reporting of the demise of real estate continues in the media, there is still a lot of activity in real estate markets across the country.  At REindex.com, (pronounced Are-ee-index) we have started publishing reports of where our site visitors are looking at real estate.  The following is information that real estate buyers, sellers, and investors will find interesting.

The top states searched on REindex.com in December were: New York, Illinois, Texas, Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, California, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Virginia.  These states were searched most often on REindex.com.  Each town in every state has a separate page on REindex, so the states with more towns might get more numeric results.  But the states in this list also have economic reasons that people are searching them.  The New York real estate market has been in the news lately as a good place to buy.  Illinois has both the attraction of the latest political news, and economic news that attracts bargain hunters.  Texas continues to have attractive areas for investment.  The other states also have positive reasons for both relocaters and investors to search for real estate.

A second way to look at the search inquiries, is by the number of searches per the number of towns.  This is to try and give smaller states some parity, and to expose some economic indicators that might not be apparent otherwise.  The states that comprise the top of that weighted list are: Florida, Pennsylvania, Maine, Texas, New York, Alaska, California, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Minnesota.  The states in this list usually have economic programs that are being watched by investors.  Many factors can influence searches.  Investors may be doing preliminary research ahead of job relocations, or for delinquency sales.  Companies may be researching states as they get encouraged to relocate or expand.  And solvent buyers may be looking for the property they have been seeking.

The traffic through REindex benefits from a streamlined conduit that helps researchers and buyers access more local agent web sites faster than other sites do.  It is a directory of agents who are actually working, and it provides direct and unimpeded links to their web sites based on the towns they actually have listings in.  No fees are charged to agents who make their own listings easy to find.  REindex.com,The Site Engine® has been operating since March of 2000 and is operated by MA real estate broker, Heath Coker.