With mortgage rates at an all-time low and Canadians looking to distance themselves from their neighbours as a result of COVID-19, the real estate market has shifted significantly in the last six to 12 months—but by how much, and in which ways?

Seeing a 20% increase in Canadians looking to “invest in real estate” compared to 2019, trends data provider SEMrush has compared average search volumes over the past year to see what exactly Canadians are looking for when it comes to their next move.

TO BUY, OR NOT TO BUY

More Canadians seem to be interested in renting over buying new property when comparing average searches from 2019-2020, with 137,300 average monthly searches since January 2019, compared to “for sale” searches averaging 113,110.

However, the impact of COVID-19 on this trend is significant. Comparing searches for April and May 2020—one month after the severity of the global pandemic became clear and recommendations were made regarding social distancing—Canadian interest in property for sale grew and surpassed the average searches for properties for rent by almost 20%.

This increase in interest continued in June 2020 with 167,800 average searches for properties for sale, however becomes outmatched by an unprecedented 300% increase in searches for rental cottages in June.

Search trends for keywords containing 'for rent' and 'for sale' in Canada

PROPERTY PREFERENCES

What kind of property exactly are Canadians starting to look for with this increased interest in purchasing real estate? Depends on where you are.

Data suggests that East Coast Canadians are interested in downsizing, with average searches for “tiny homes for sale” skyrocketing by 733%, 467% and 200% in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI, respectively, between 2019-2020. Conversely, Ontario’s condo craze may be coming to an end, with a 15% decrease in average search volume for “condos for sale” compared YOY.

As the real estate market has been turned upside down since the start of the year, interest in rural areas and even preferred property type for purchase has shifted. Average searches for “cottages for sale” have increased by 200% since January 2020, with “houses,” “tiny homes” and “townhomes/townhouses” almost tied for increased interest with a 58%, 55% and 54% jump in searches, respectively. Searches for “condos,” however, show only an 8% increase, suggesting that more Canadians are looking to get away from urban areas to regions where they can reside in stand-alone properties in the outdoors.

Property type	% increase in Search Volume
Cottages	200%
Houses	58%
Tiny homes	55%
Townhomes/townhouses.	54%
Apartments	14%
Condos	8%

HOT MARKETS

Ontario and British Columbia are top markets when comparing the average number of searches for properties for sale with each province’s population. Interestingly, Canada’s Eastern provinces pop up as the third, fourth and sixth regions with the highest percent interest, with Newfoundland and Labrador (0.30%), New Brunswick (0.28%) and Nova Scotia (0.226%)

Despite—or perhaps because of—a high cost to advertise real estate in Alberta, as explored below, the province rates low on the list with only 0.17% of the population searching for real estate.

Interest in Real Estate according to Google searches in Canada

COST TO MARKET

Comparing the average cost-per-click (CPC) on real estate keywords in each market, Ontario is the most expensive province for advertising real estate online, costing an average of $0.18 more than the next highest region. Alberta and British Columbia are close for second and third most expensive regions, with an average of $0.40 and $0.39 CPC, respectively.

Province / Territory	Average CPC
Ontario	$0.62
Alberta	$0.40
British Columbia	$0.39
Quebec	$0.23
Manitoba	$0.13
Nova Scotia	$0.11
Saskatchewan	$0.11
New Brunswick	$0.07
Newfoundland + Labrador	$0.05
PEI	$0.04
Northwest Territories	$0.001
Yukon / Nunavut	N/A

WEB TRAFFIC

In alignment with an increase in average search volume, overall web traffic to real estate websites in Canada increased by 26.81% YOY, suggesting not only a spike in Canadian interest in investing in property, but also an increased interest in using web services and digital tools to buy and sell homes.

The greatest increase YOY was seen by KW.com (Keller Williams) with 182% jump in traffic. Since January 2020, Royal Lepage and PropertyGuys.com saw the highest increase in traffic at 113% and 93%, respectively, in addition to Keller Williams’ incredible 473% jump.

Canadian Real Estate market trend according to SEMrush traffic analytics data

So, who’s looking to buy? According to SEMrush Market Explorer, visitors to real estate websites are 51.22% female with 78.58% of viewers between the ages of 25-54.

Not only are Canadians interested in real estate across the Great White North; 16.8% of all web traffic comes from the United States, with 0.3% from the United Kingdom, 0.2% Puerto Rico and 0.1% from the Philippines. Despite its small market share, interest and visitation from the Philippines has increased by 254.62% over the last year.

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We hope you enjoyed reading this study as much as we enjoyed collecting the data for it

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About SEMrush:

SEMrush is an online visibility management and content marketing SaaS platform that ensures businesses get measurable results from online marketing. Trusted by more than 6,000,000 marketing professionals, SEMrush offers insights and solutions for companies in any industry to build, manage, and measure campaigns across all marketing channels.

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