The ‘Bias Machine’: Google Tells You What You Want to Hear about Property Markets
In the digital age, Google often serves as the first point of contact for those seeking insights on property market trends, risks, and returns. However, just as it’s easy to find confirmation of political biases through Google’s algorithm, the same holds for property markets. By offering results tailored to users' query phrasing and clicking history, Google has unintentionally become a reinforcement engine—strengthening, rather than challenging, pre-existing assumptions.
This is all the more relevant when you consider that 85% of consumers searched for information online and 29% searched social media for market and mortgage information.
Consider a potential property investor asking, “Will Canadian house prices continue rising?” Google may prioritize articles forecasting continuous growth, echoing the widespread belief in a perpetually resilient market. But another investor typing “Is the Canadian Property Bubble Going to Burst?” may receive predominantly negative takes, focusing on economic downturns and price corrections. This disparity is not incidental. Google’s algorithms, designed to optimize relevance and user satisfaction, can inadvertently produce a skewed view, reinforcing one’s initial stance rather than providing a balanced perspective.
“Will Canadian house prices continue rising?”
Is the Canadian Property Bubble Going to Burst?
Biased Queries Provide Biased Results: A Self-Reinforcing Search Result Loop
The heart of this algorithmic bias lies in the “click loop.” Google ranks content by popularity and relevance, meaning that articles predicting a bullish or bearish outlook tend to float to the top of relevant searches. Suppose a user’s previous searches focused on optimistic forecasts; Google may continue presenting rosy predictions about property value appreciation.
Conversely, if their history indicates caution, more pessimistic analyses are likely to surface. In practice, this algorithmic tailoring can distort reality, particularly in areas such as property market forecasts and risks, where accuracy is probabilistic and highly dependent on diverse, sometimes conflicting data and likely should be presented as a range of best and worst-case scenarios, framing a most likely scenario.
For example, searching for “rental condo profits” often highlights articles on rising demand and rental yields, bolstering the investor’s confidence in the sector. But the same user may struggle to access, or even encounter, articles on regulatory risks, changing tax laws, or falling yields in overheated markets. Such omissions—whether intentional or not—can skew the picture and potentially contribute to overconfident investment decisions.
Assessing Risk in Property: A Tale of Two Searches
Investors examining risk factors in property also face Google’s search bias. Searching for “property market risks” might yield sensational articles forecasting doom, while “property investment advantages” may produce glowing appraisals of rental yields and capital appreciation. This discrepancy can have serious implications for investors looking to navigate real estate uncertainties. For instance, in recent years, the risk of prolonged high interest rates and economic downturns has led to heightened caution among property analysts. However, those relying heavily on Google may miss these cautionary perspectives if they aren’t actively seeking them out.
Property Market Risks
Property Market Advantages
Further complicating matters is Google’s emphasis on keywords rather than nuances in intent. Searches like “property market investment opportunities” pull up optimistic overviews but rarely highlight the economic, tax, or regulatory hurdles that could undercut return on investment (ROI). The result is a self-curated feed of information that reassures investors with promising headlines rather than offering a balanced analysis of market conditions and ROI.
The Role of AI in Shaping the Property Narrative
Google’s shift from a search engine to an “answer engine” with AI-driven snippets and direct responses further complicates this issue. In the property market realm, where accurate, up-to-date, and nuanced information is crucial, AI-generated summaries can gloss over complexities in favour of short, definitive answers. Below are snapshots of Google’s AI-generated answers to the same questions we asked above. With Google serving as the primary source for property market insights for many investors, these simplified answers can obscure the full range of information.
This highlights the need for a solution that is expert in the property markets and behaves like it has a fiduciary duty to clients.
In wealth management, fiduciary duty refers to a legal and ethical obligation that requires advisors to act in the best interests of their clients. This duty binds financial advisors, investment managers, and other fiduciaries to prioritize their clients’ needs and financial well-being over their own interests. Key elements of fiduciary duty include:
Duty of Loyalty: The fiduciary must avoid conflicts of interest and put the client’s needs first. This means avoiding actions that could benefit the advisor at the client’s expense and fully disclosing any potential conflicts.
Duty of Care: The fiduciary must manage assets and provide advice with a high level of competence, due diligence, and attention to detail. This involves making well-informed decisions, monitoring investments, and ensuring that advice aligns with the client’s financial goals, risk tolerance, and time horizon.
Full Transparency: Fiduciaries must be clear and honest about fees, investment strategies, and any potential risks associated with products or services.
This duty is especially important in wealth management, where the fiduciary’s guidance can significantly impact a client’s financial security.
“Will Canadian house prices continue rising?”
Is the Canadian Property Bubble Going to Burst?
The real danger here lies in the algorithm’s inability to understand, much less convey, the subtleties of financial markets. Real estate investments are inherently risky, with success hinging on awareness of both opportunities and pitfalls. When Google’s algorithm tries to satisfy the user’s search intent with a single, definitive answer, it risks creating an echo chamber where only part of the story is ever told.
Real estate agents also have a fiduciary duty, which is transactional-oriented.
For example, The Real Estate Council of Ontario specifies the duties the brokerage and agent owe to you as a client are:
Undivided loyalty: Your best interests are promoted and protected by the brokerage or agent representing you. As a client, your interests take priority over the interests of the brokerage, its agents, and any other party.
Disclosure: They must tell you everything they know about the transaction or your client relationship that could have an impact on any decisions you make.
Confidentiality: Your confidential information cannot be shared with anyone outside of the brokerage without your written consent, except where required by law, even after your client relationship ends. This includes, for example, your motivation for buying or selling, and the amount you would be willing to pay or accept.
Avoid conflicts of interest: They must avoid any situation that would affect their duty to act in your best interests. If a conflict arises, they must disclose it to you and cannot provide any additional services to you unless you agree in writing to continue receiving services.
Real estate agents will try to get you a good price for the property you are buying; they are much less oriented toward what happens to the value of the property after you buy, your risk tolerance, property and market risks, and regional differences in regulation, taxes, and potential capital appreciation.
Overcoming the Search Bias: A Call for Transparency
In response to criticism, Google has introduced features like “About This Result” to provide context on information sources. Yet, in property investment, where the financial commitment can range in the hundreds of thousands to millions, these tools are too weak and too late. Most users anchor their opinions of their first impression and rarely click beyond the first few results, much less scroll through disclosures on algorithmic biases or conflicting viewpoints.
Investors, then, are left with a challenging paradox: Google’s dominance in information accessibility comes at the cost of reliable objectivity. For property market insights, this becomes particularly perilous. Without understanding the potential bias embedded in Google’s search results, investors may unwittingly fall into a feedback loop of selective optimism or pessimism—missing essential data that could help avert poor decisions.
Our solution
Google might continue to work to resolve the issue of search bias in property markets. However, the payback for their efforts will be low. Most users will not complain because they are unaware they receive biased information. The owners of the content shown in search results will not object because they intentionally craft their content to show in specific search results, in a marketing strategy called search engine optimization (SEO).
At Property Edge, we recognize that perceptions of property ownership are sometimes influenced more by media outlets seeking clickable headlines, search engine bias, and social media influencers seeking viral videos. Economic fundamentals and the principle that "Past performance is no guarantee of future results" are often an afterthought.
We feel that providing an alternative to the ‘bias machine’ is not just a matter of perspective but of integrity. This is why we are building an AI-powered platform to deliver smarter, more balanced and intuitive insights for property owners and investors.
