‘Realtor.com’ and ‘REMAX’ Continue as Dominant Search Terms on Internet for Real Estate

The search terms ‘realtor.com’ and ‘remax’ continue to rank as the two most frequently used for Internet real estate searches, according to a recent study by Hitwise, an online competitive intelligence service.

Hitwise looks at Internet searches completed each month. In September 2007, ‘realtor.com’ and ‘remax’ ranked one and two among real estate search terms, garnering 1.69 percent and 0.92 percent of searches respectively.

Two months later, in November, the two terms held the same positions, but have increased their share of search usage substantially, with ‘realtor.com’ at 4.71 percent and ‘remax’ at 2.55 percent, according to Hitwise.

“Home sales have become increasingly tied to Internet usage in recent years, with 80 percent of buyers using the Internet when seeking a home in 2007,” said Jim Merrion, regional director of RE/MAX Northern Illinois. “As a result, it has become critical in the real estate industry to have the kind of widely recognized brand that consumers will utilize as a search term when seeking real estate information and listings through search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo. We are proud to see the RE/MAX brand enjoying such strong recognition among Internet users.”

Following ‘realtor.com’ and ‘remax’ among the Top 10 real estate search terms were: ‘Homegain,’ ‘Move.com,’ ‘Zillow,’ ‘Yahoo! Real Estate,’ ‘Rent.com,’ ‘ZipRealty,’ ‘Apartments.com’ and ‘ServiceMagic.’