Americans are Upbeat Toward Housing | Las Vegas Real Estate

Mar 15, 2013, Posted by: Summer Bowen

American consumers continue to express strong positive attitudes towards housing according to Fannie Mae?s February 2013 National Housing Survey results. ?The survey found Americans who believe home prices will increase in the next year have hit their highest levels since the survey began in June 2010. ?However, confidence in personal finances, household income and the health of the overall economy fell or remained flat according to the survey.

?Despite fiscal headwinds and political uncertainty, consumer sentiment toward housing is robust and continues to gather strength,? said Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae. ?We expect home prices to firm further amid a durable housing recovery, gradually reducing the population of underwater borrowers and helping to boost the share of consumers who say that now is a good time to sell.?

Here are some highlights from the survey:

• Fifty percent of those surveyed say home prices will go up in the next 12 months, holding steady from January at the highest level since the survey?s inception
• The share of respondents who said that if they were moving, they would buy rather than rent, increased by 2 percentage points to 67 percent.
• Nearly half of those surveyed ? 45 percent ? think mortgage rates will go up. That was an increase of 4 percentage points to the highest level since August 2011. Only 7 percent of those surveyed thought mortgage rates would go down.
• 25 percent of respondents think it?s a good time to sell a house, the highest level since the survey?s inception in June 2010.
• At 38 percent, the share of respondents who say the economy is on the right track has held steady over the past three months.

Source: http://www.marshallstearns.com/economy/americans-are-upbeat-towards-housing/

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