Google searches for “help with mortgage” recently climbed to their highest level since 2009, but that doesn’t mean a housing bubble is about to burst.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) drew attention to the spike earlier this month, replying to a post on social platform X that featured a Google Trends chart, calling it “Donald Trump’s housing market.”
NewsNation, The Hill’s sister network, reviewed Google Trends data and confirmed that search activity for “help with mortgage” (not in quotes) hit the highest level in August since 2009. That’s slightly at odds with the chart Warren shared, which showed U.S. search interest peaking in 2008.
But whether the prior peak came in 2008 or 2009 matters less than what the trend suggests today.
Any comparison to the Great Recession is bound to raise alarms, but there are several reasons the latest uptick may not signal a looming housing crisis.
What to know about Google Trends data
Google Trends does show a recent rise in U.S. searches for “help with mortgage” (not in quotes), but that doesn’t mean it’s a direct reflection of payment stress.
Those searches also include people looking for help with mortgage applications and general guidance. Searches for “refinance help,” for example, picked up somewhat in August as mortgage rates eased.
The way terms are entered makes a difference as well. Without quotes, Google Trends results include searches containing both words — “mortgage” and “help” — in any order. By contrast, searches for the exact phrase “help with mortgage” show a recent increase, but much lower than the March 2009 peak. And searches for “help with mortgage payments” (in quotes) don’t show the same jump.
Google has also changed the way it tracks search data three times since 2011, which means year-to-year comparisons are imperfect.
Other warning signs, like searches for “foreclosure,” haven’t increased and remain relatively low, according to Google Trends data.
That said, it’s possible the recent rise in search activity could indicate brewing financial distress. August’s level surpassed the previous “help with mortgage” search spike in March 2020 at the outset of the pandemic.
Foreclosures and delinquencies remain low
Housing costs are high, and elevated mortgage rates have sidelined many would-be buyers. But so far, traditional signs of distress — foreclosures and delinquencies — remain far below Great Recession levels.
The share of new seriously delinquent mortgages, 90 days or more past due, was 1.3 percent in the second quarter, up from 0.6 percent two years earlier, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. By comparison, from the start of 2007 to early 2009, that rate jumped from 1.9 percent to 7.4 percent and regularly topped 8 percent in 2009.
Foreclosures have also edged higher recently, but the historical context is important.
There were 187,659 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — in the first half of 2025, according to real estate data firm ATTOM. That’s up 5.8 percent from the same time period last year.
For perspective: in the first half of 2009, more than 1.5 million U.S. properties had foreclosure filings, ATTOM data shows. In the first half of 2008, it was about 1.3 million.
Recent jobs data suggest the labor market has cooled, but for now, the unemployment rate is still relatively low at 4.3 percent.
