Friday, October 12, 2012

Survey Says… Good Time to Buy or Sell Your Home

Fannie Mae just released the results of September’s National Housing Survey which delivers good news if you are trying to sell your home or buy a new home. Americans at large are feeling positive about the housing market and economy in general.

“Consumers are showing increasing faith…” said Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist of Fannie Mae. “Home price change expectations have remained positive for 11 straight months, and the share expecting home price declines has stabilized at a survey low of only 11 percent. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve’s latest round of quantitative easing has caused a large drop in mortgage rate expectations. Friday’s September jobs report, including the strong upward revisions for prior months, a sizable increase in earnings, and a sharp decline in the unemployment rate, should provide further impetus for improving consumer confidence in the housing market.”

With future expected moderate increases in home prices and current low interest rates, nineteen percent of survey respondents agree that “now is a good time to sell” the highest rate since June of 2010 and sixty-nine percent said they would buy if they were going to move. Seventy-two percent of survey participants stated that “now is a good time to buy.”

On a grander economic scale, forty-four percent of survey respondents also felt that their personal finances were seeing improvement and seventeen percent reported a significant increase in their household income in the last year. Despite the improvement, however, thirty-four percent of the 1,000 survey participants still reported significant increases in household expenses.

To find out more details and see graphs of the survey results, please click here.  If you would like to hear what these statistics mean for you and your home, please give me a call!