House hunters are increasingly going mobile with their real estate searches, according to a new survey by The Search Agency, a global online marketing firm. The report shows that growth in real estate searches on tablets and smartphones has tripled in the past year, while desktop searches have mostly stayed flat.

The Search Agency analyzed data from its real estate clients in order to identify online search trends from July to August as compared to the same time period last year.  

“While consumers may not be ditching their computers altogether, they’re flocking to smartphones and tablets to search for homes and apartments,” says Keith Wilson of The Search Agency. “It’s no surprise that more and more people are using their mobile devices to find properties, listings, and houses. However, this data offers real estate marketers deeper insight around consumer habits and opportunities to provide the right ads and content at the right time of day, day of the week, and on which device.”

Below are some of the findings from The Search Agency’s survey.

Device usage: The study found that 50 percent of real estate impressions on weekdays are from a desktop computer. But on weekends, impressions on smartphones and tablets account for 59 percent, with smartphones taking 40 percent of that share and tablets snagging 19 percent. 

Timing of their search: House hunters are doing their research mostly during work hours, with 70 percent of total clicks registering between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., according to the study. The highest volume of search clicks were registered between noon and 6 p.m. But night owls are searching for real estate information, too. Consumers who searched between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. mostly did their searches from their smartphones. That period of time is the only time that smartphone searches alone topped desktop searches. 

Source: The Search Agency