Ok…So we’ve heard the news that the housing market is softening up, but by how much? Most industry reports detail price drops and sparsely attended open houses, but we haven’t seen an actual figure of how bad the situation has become. Since many of us at Compete own homes, we thought we would put our data to action.

Measuring Housing Demand Online:

Compete selected seven major housing/real estate sites to act as a proxy of the overall interest in the housing market. We selected these sites based on the following criteria:

• Offered limited or no rental properties
• Detailed estimated home pricing based on property taxes
• Attracted a minimum of 1MM visitors each month

There are hundreds of real estate sites, but for the purpose of our study we were comfortable narrowing the market to the sites highlighted below:

Housing Participation Down 13%

We measured visitor traffic to our proxy market and found a 13% decrease in participation over the past six months. The summer months tend to drive an increase in real estate activity, so this trend is even more alarming than we had anticipated; however, 13% doesn’t seem that bad…right?

Wrong! We found that the situation is worse. Measuring for interest in the real estate market doesn’t accurately account for “intention”. Many of us own homes and we pay attention to its value, but brief visits to real estate sites does not mean we are “in the market” for a new home. To more accurately measure real estate demand we took a second view measuring both the volume of visitors to sites and the volume of pageviews they made as an indication of actual intent. When adjusting for pageviews, real estate demand shows a 15% decrease from February 2006 to August 2006.

Where do we go from here?

A 15% fall in real estate demand is…not good. However, it’s not the end of the world. Albert Einstein said, “In the middle of difficulty, opportunity exists” and that’s the way Compete prefers to see it. Intelligent organization of clickstream allows Compete to see trends that people express through their online patterns. We look forward to sitting back, monitoring demand and then buying half of Boston when we see demand recovering. Check back in or send and email if you would like us to send you updates.

Well, I have to admit I don’t send packages very often and when I do I usually use the US postal service. So on September 12 I had to send out a package to New Jersey and like I normally do I walked to the post office, waited in line and then handed the teller my package. I paid the cheapest amount necessary and I walked out. My job was done. Except this package was my wife’s bride’s maid dress for her twin sisters wedding in 2 weeks. As I was walking out of the Post Office, I began to wonder if I should have paid the extra couple of bucks to get it there sooner, if it will get there at all and if I should have gotten insurance. Nah. Don’t packages always get to their destination?

It’s now Friday 9/29 and after 2 weeks of calling, yelling and apologies (to my wife), the package that I thought would absolutely get to its destination, is back at my Boston apartment safe and sound. It somehow became lost in route from Boston to Jersey. I appreciate the efforts of the US Postal Service, but from now on I’m using either UPS or FedEx…maybe even DHL. With my amateur status in package sending, I wanted to look at how many people are much savvier than me and are using UPS.com and FedEx.com. Below is a chart showing people visiting UPS.com and FedEx.com for the past six months. Why couldn’t I be like the 14 million people per month who use Federal Express or UPS?

For the past 10 years, General Mills and Box Tops for Education have partnered and donated over $175 million to 90,000 participating K-8 schools…all for the simple act of clipping box tops! The year round fundraiser has created enormous buzz for General Mills products and has provided incentive for parents and children to purchase General Mills brands when shopping online or in the grocery store. This is a great way for General Mills to get brand association in front of their future consumers.

Boxtops4education.com offers parents discount coupons, advice on education, as well as recipes. And of course, any participating school receives $.10 for every product boxtop clipped and sent to General Mills. That adds up and is costing General Mills a fortune, albeit for a good cause. Recently, General Mills has partnered with corporations like JC Penny, Lands End, and Visa to extend the program outside of groceries and to take some of the burden off their donations. We bet they didn’t see this program becoming as big as it has.

To most parents, this is the best time of the year. Unfortunately, to many scholarly children, this can be the worst time of year.

Moms and Dads everywhere begin to make sure their kids are prepared for the upcoming school year by taking them for a little “back-to-school” shopping. Most kids dread that back to school trip to the mall and would rather be doing anything else…even cleaning their room. So what have retailers done to make back to school shopping easier? First, with online shopping, parents no longer have to pack up their Honda Odyssey and spend a fortune on gas to get to the mall anymore. Second, the large retailers have made back-to-school supplies front and center on their sites throughout the summer so parents and kids can find exactly what they need come this fall. Target has a great section on their website dedicated to college aged kids going off to College. While Walmart has a great section dedicated to younger, grammar school shoppers. In July, Target was welcoming over 20 million people to their site and Walmart was rolling back the prices for over 21 million people!

As the large retailers battle it out, a newly redesigned Toysrus.com has launched and really created some noise in July. Site traffic is up over 341% (June to July) and over 4.9 million people are visiting to find a great new back-pack and Kiss lunch box. Actually, I’m dating myself, it’s probably some American Idol on all the lunch boxes these days…

Do you feel overwhelmed by the endless amounts of information and entertainment you can find when you go online? There never seems to be enough time in the day to read, watch, listen, and blog about everything. So, you ingest as much information as you possibly can and yet it’s inevitable you’ll wind up missing something. Then your Dad calls and tells you about this crazy dance video he found on YouTube.com. You can’t believe you missed it AND your dad was the one who told you. That’s never good…

“The 9”, which Yahoo recently launched in July, takes an “Access Hollywood” or “Extra” approach to aggregating the Web’s vast content. This site delivers TV-like online video of the 9 most interesting sites, photos, articles and videos of the day. Our data is showing that slightly over 1,000,000 people visited the page in July to watch Maria Sansone deliver The 9. Viewers of The 9 can directly interact by sending stories and links, and by voting on their favorites for the day. And what about #10 you might ask? Why a list of 9? Well, if you are a marketer you can own the #10 spot. Currently, it’s the Pepsi 10th and what a great placement it is for Pepsi. A very interactive page at Yahoo sponsored by a brand that’s young and hip. I can see an advertising bidding war ensuing as more and more people begin to find The 9.

Have you ever thought about running a marathon? How about a half marathon? Just thinking about running a mile makes you want to throw up? And in times like these, who can find the time to exercise and train? It’s exhausting to run 1 mile, what about 26.2! It just seems impossible. Yet, according to our data, over 155,000 “yes, you can” runners are visiting runnersworld.com a month and becoming empowered to take that next step in their life.

Runnersworld.com is a great site dedicated to running and the running consumer. They offer great articles on everything the average or professional runner needs to know about gear, diet, training, races, and motivation. They’ll let you know that a double ¼ pounder with cheese from McDonalds before a race isn’t the best idea. Who knew? And they do shed some great insight and reviews on finding the right running shoes. Which tends to be one of the most challenging and expensive aspects about running.

Runner’s World has recently taken the initiative to involve consumers by adding a forum section to their site where we can discuss everything about running. Our data is showing that 35% of the domains page views are in the forum. You can join and share with your online running community personal stories, videos and photos, rave about a recent running triumph, or let other runners in on a new trail that you just discovered. It’s a great place to stop by and relax after a run and share your personal stories with other runners from around the world.