Chicago at the top, Anchorage at the bottom
As one of the largest real estate search sites in America, Realtor.com ranks each of the 146 largest markets according to the number of visitors that search for a particular market each month. In September, Chicago kept the top spot as enjoying the most searches on Realtor.com over any other city, with Detroit hot on Chicago’s tail, jumping up a spot to the second most searched market.
Julie Reynolds, Vice President of Public Relations at Move, Inc., told AGBeat, “We track the current and previous month so we can watch trends in terms of interest or popularity.”
It is also a good way for real estate professionals to gauge how active they should be in order to meet their audience. Chicago agents should be on the site as there is a massive number of visitors looking for product in Chicago, and Realtors should be sure to keep their competitive edge. At the same time, knowing that Anchorage, AK and Spokane, WA are at the bottom of the list, making it potentially easier to corner that market on the site. It is also relevant to know which cities are falling and rising in traffic volume as an indicator of interest.
Top 20 most searched cities* in September
Search is heating up in these markets, and interest is rising in various areas, like Philadelphia who jumped three spots between August and September:
- Chicago
- Detroit (up one spot from August)
- Los Angeles (up one spot)
- Philadelphia (up three spots)
- Atlanta
- Tampa
- Phoenix (up one spot)
- Las Vegas (down six spots)
- Dallas
- Boston
- Riverside, CA
- Orlando
- Fort Lauderdale (up one spot)
- San Diego (down one spot)
- West Palm Beach
- Orange County, CA
- Washington D.C.
- Miami
- Baltimore (up one spot)
- New Haven, CT (up two spots)
Top 20 least searched cities* in September
These 20 markets are searched the least, and it appears that from month to month, there is a lot of spot hopping. Agents can corner a market that others have given up on or are not tech savvy enough to be present in yet:
- 127. Charleston, WV
- 128. Ocala, FL
- 129. Lexington, KY
- 130. South Bend, IN
- 131. Boise City, ID
- 132. Santa Fe (up three spots)
- 133. Tyler, TX
- 134. Portland, OR
- 135. Shreveport (up three spots)
- 136. Gainesville, FL (up three spots)
- 137. Iowa City, IA (up one spot)
- 138. Columbia, MO (down two spots)
- 139. Punta Gorda, FL (up four spots)
- 140. Springfield, IL (down three spots)
- 141. Pueblo, CO (up one spot)
- 142. Cedar Rapids, IA (down two spots)
- 143. Salem, OR (up two spots)
- 144. Spokane, WA (down three spots)
- 145. Huntsville, AR (down one spot)
- 146. Anchorage, AK
*Realtor.com studies 146 markets, we have named them by general market name, not the precise MSA label.
