Americans flood Canadian website after election

SEATTLE — Are Americans worried about a President Donald Trump really going to move to Canada? It’s a theme that pops up after many political reversals in the U.S., but there’s some evidence to suggest people are at least thinking about it now.

The Canadian Real Estate Association says it’s seen nearly three times more web traffic than normal from Americans over the last few days.

Last November, it saw about 10,400 Americans per day searching for homes in Canada. Over the last few days, the average surged to 27,700, with a further spike on Wednesday morning.

Zillow said it saw a 1,200 percent spike in people Googling “Zillow Canada” after the election results came in Tuesday night (even though Zillow doesn’t operate in Canada). Washington state and Seattle were among the leading sources of queries.

Similarly, the Google search term “Canada homes for sale” surged 1,011 percent after Trump opened his lead over challenger Hillary Clinton.

The Canadian immigration site crashed on Tuesday night due to a surge in traffic.

In Pierce County, one Gig Harbor Realtor even posted an ad in the local paper that read: “Moving to Canada? We’ll sell your house!” above pictures of the candidates.

But don’t expect that to translate into a mass migration, said Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist at the real estate website Trulia.

“Seattleites searching for homes in Canada equates at most to window shopping,” McLaughlin said. “We think the burgeoning interest in Canadian real estate from American buyers is more of a gut reaction to shocked left-leaning voters, and not any real indication that Americans are likely to expatriate themselves to the Great White North.”