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Hitwise Intelligence - Sandra Hanchard - Asia Pacific

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« Property searches attracting the highest growth amongst finance queries in Singapore | Private Shopping Clubs dominate Apparel Sites in Australia »

Searches for Property for Sale and Credit Cards attract strong growth in NZ

May 17, 2010

Following on from my post on Singapore financial search trends, we also looked at New Zealand queries to provide a reflection of economic conditions. We similarly found in NZ during Q1 2010 a rising trend for users to research a range of financial topics, including searching for properties to buy and rent, mortgages, credit cards, loans and savings.

* Property for sale searches (eg. ‘houses for sale’, ‘houses for sale auckland, ‘property for sale’) increased by 195.1% in the first quarter of the year compared to Q1 2009, and 53.4% up on Q42009.
* New Zealand locations that attracted significant year on year growth in property for sale searches included Auckland, Ashburton, Christchurch and Masterton, Rodney District and One Tree Hill.
* Searches for mortgages were down on last year by 7.3%, though have shown recovery with an 23.5% increase through Q1 since Q4 2009.

* Property for rent searches (eg. Variations of ‘houses for rent’, ‘holiday homes for rent’, ‘properties for rent’) increased by 130.5% in the first quarter of the year compared to Q1 2009 and 66.5% over the quarter.
*Trade Me homes for rent’ was the fastest moving rental search term year on year, highlighting the strength of the auction site outside of retail. Fast moving locations for rentals included, Auckland, Manurewa, Oamaru, as well as overseas interest in Melbourne.

*Searches for loans increased steadily by 48.8% year on year, and 31.5% over the quarter. Student loan queries dominated the top loan searches, accounting for 4 out of the top 10.

*Searches for credit cards increased by 150.1% over the year compared to Q12009.
* Driven by branded search, with ‘global plus credit card’, the most searched for credit card term, experiencing 26.9% more searches than last March. Other leading branded terms in order of popularity included, ‘kiwibank credit card’, ‘bnz credit cards’, ‘warehouse credit card’, ‘bnz credit card’, and ‘asb credit card’.
*Searches for ‘credit card balance transfer’, ‘low interest credit card’, ‘credit card fees’, were prominent generic searches as consumers tried to transfer and manage their debts.

*Searches for savings increased by 85.3% over the year, and increased by 47.5% over the quarter as consumers remained fiscally cautious.

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In Categories Finance