How website users segment a city: The geography of housing search in London

This paper explores spatial patterns of housing search in London, using data generated by users of the UK's most popular real estate portal. By focusing on the variable geographies of ‘search extent’, it attempts to make a contribution to a long line of studies focused on understanding the fragmented geography of metropolitan housing markets. It also builds upon more recent work in economics on the utility of user-generated search data. After introducing our approach, we discuss the background to housing search and the wider emergence of ‘search’ as an object of study. We then provide further details on the data and methodology before exploring the spatial and sectoral characteristics of search in London. The results suggest that there is much to be gained by incorporating search studies into housing market analysis and that there is significant potential for future work in this area.