Over the past five years, the average interest in buying an apartment among Google users in Ukraine has grown by half. Currency fluctuations, increasing well-being of Ukrainians, low prices, the desire to change old housing to new – one of these factors or their totality caused such a surge of interest?
“With Google Trends, we estimated the correlation of the dollar and the number of requests to buy an apartment. For 5 years the course and interest have grown in parallel. The correlation coefficient since 2014 is 0.7, which indicates a rather strong positive relationship between the indicators. It is also important to note that the connection is clearly non-linear – the higher the course, the greater its effect on the intensity of inquiries,” – said Alexandra Gluzdovska, Head of Data Science of DC Evolution.
With regard to the intensity of interest in the issue of buying an apartment and changing the price of real estate, the opposite is the opposite – the lower the price, the higher the level of interest. In this case, the dependence is nonlinear, but rather hyperbolic – the higher the price, the more power it has on reducing interest.
“Speaking of requests for apartments, in Ukraine as a whole, interest has not changed much over the last 5 years, but in Kyiv it is growing every year and this year was the maximum for the whole period. Apartment rental requests also have some seasonality: from January to April, the number of requests is about the same, and since May there has been a significant increase in interest, which peaks in August. In the fall, the number of requests drops until it reaches a minimum in December,” – said Alexandra Gluzdovska, Head of Data Science of DC Evolution.
A comparison of rent and purchase requests for apartments shows that the issue of buying an apartment is more relevant to Internet users. At the same time, in Kyiv, the gap between these requests is slightly smaller than across Ukraine.