Analysis of the Relationship Between COVID-19 Infections and Web-Based Housing Searches

The study used Google search query data on real estate interest for several countries in the Baltic area. The dynamics of public interest in housing have been compared to the dynamics of the COVID-19 infections in Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and Sweden. This study uses the Vector autoregressive (VAR) model to forecast such time series. VAR is a multivariate linear time series model in which the endogenous variables in the system are lagged functions of the values of all endogenous variables. The increase in COVID-19 infections negatively affected society’s interest in housing. The study used Google Trends and R software.