The way a market or industry changes over the course of time is referred to as a trend. The direction in which the change occurs needs to be consistent and the change itself needs to be statistically noticeable.

The real estate industry shows different trends at different points of time. However those interested in the industry do not have the time or resources to monitor the ever changing shifts in the industry. This very important task is thus left to the experts. They analyse the changes and track the way the real estate industry is developing. Some definitive reports are published every year with their findings.

One such report is that published by RIS Media and RealSure Publishing. Called the Swanepol Real Estate Trends Report, this study gives the details of the top 10 trends that will affect the real estate industry in the coming year and a half. The report is considered to be one of the foremost studies of real estate trends today.

The Swanepol Real Estate Trends Report looks at the structural and strategic changes that the real estate industry has faced in the past year. The research underlying the study is based on national figures. Trends in the industry as well as new business models are followed carefully. These are then evaluated and studied in a systematic manner. The effect of each trend on the future of the market as well its effect on buyers, sellers and real estate brokers is analysed carefully.

The report thus succeeds in giving a very detailed idea of the way the real estate industry has been behaving over the past year. It also analyses the top 10 trends, which is very helpful for all real estate professionals as these will impact them in the coming few years.

The report is published every year with updated figures. It is released in the month of February with updated figures from the last quarter of the previous year. Each of the top 10 trends is analysed separately and a take away is included at the end for real estate brokers and agents.

This year the Swanepoel Report is bigger than ever…it has 50% more pages than the last year! Among other things it focuses on Zillion.com, Google base and search engines related to the industry. It also looks at interactive websites like MySpace.com, Facebook.com, YouTube.com and Flickr.com. Growing mortgage fraud as well as other issues in the real estate industry are given due importance.