Search

Housing Market Optimism Tempered by Shutdown

by devteam October 8th, 2013 | Share

Fannie Mae said today that consumerrnresponses to its monthly National Housing Survey may have been tempered inrnSeptember by growing concern about Congress’s fiscal policy debate.  While consumers continue to be generally upbeatrntoward the housing market, their attitudes appear to have plateaued or evenrndecreased over the last three months.</p

“Our September National Housing Surveyrnresults show that the improvements in consumer housing attitudes witnessed inrnrecent months softened ahead of the government shutdown,” said Doug Duncan,rnsenior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae. “Americans’ awarenessrnof policy uncertainty leading up to the October 1st shutdown and the pendingrndebt ceiling debate appears to have grown as indicated by an apparentrncautionary holding pattern in overall consumer housing and personal financernsentiment.” </p

How and when the policy issues arernhandled could impact consumer attitudes over the next few months, Duncanrnsaid.  The gap between people who thinkrnthe economy is on the right track rose from 37 percent to 39 percent fromrnAugust to September with the wrong track opinion declining by those same twornpoints to 55 percent.  This narrowingrngap, Duncan said, “Could widen, depending on the outcome of the debt ceilingrnnegotiations as the Treasury expects that the extraordinary measures to extendrnthe nation’s borrowing authority will be exhausted by October 17. For example,rnduring the contentious 2011 debt ceiling debate and the resulting S&Prndowngrade of the U.S. government debt, our survey showed that the rightrntrack-wrong track spread widened to a survey record of 64 percentage points.”rn </p

</p

The percentage of survey respondentsrnwho expect home prices to increase further over the next 12 months decreasedrnfrom 55 percent in August to 52 percent in the current survey and the averagernexpectation for an increase was down from 3.4 percent to 3.1 percent.  However, mortgage rates are anticipated tornincrease by a survey high 63 percent of respondents, up from 60 percent thernprevious month.</p

</p

</p

Seventy-two percent of surveyrnrespondents say it is a good time to buy a house, up 1 percentage point, whilern38 percent view it as a good time to sell. rnThe latter is an increase of 2 percentage points.</p

Respondents however appear to feelrnthat pressures in the rental market have eased. rnFifty-two percent now expect that rents will increase over the next 12rnmonths compared to 53 percent in August and about 55 percent in July.  The average increase in rents expected hasrnalso decreased steadily since June when it peaked at around 4.3 percent.  In September the average expectation was forrnincreases of around 3.4 percent.</p

The share of respondents who said they would buy if theyrnwere going to move increased to a survey high of 69 percent and the share ofrnthose who think it would be easy for them to do so increased slightly to 47rnpercent.</p

The percentage of respondents who expect their financialrnsituation to get worse over the next 12 months blipped up 4 percentage pointsrnin September to 16 percent but the remaining 84 percent of respondents arernequally divided between those who expect an improvement and those whornanticipate no change.  The share of consumersrnwho say their household income is significantly higher than it was 12 monthsrnago fell by one percentage point from August, to 22 percent and those who saysrntheir expenses are significantly higher rose from 32 percent to 33.</p

</p

Fannie Mae conducts its National Housing Survey by phonerneach month among a panel of about 1,000 respondents including both homeownersrnand renters.  The panel is asked more thanrn100 questions to assess their   attitudesrntoward owning and renting a home, housing and rental price changes,rnhomeownership distress, the economy, household finances, and overall consumerrnconfidence.

All Content Copyright © 2003 – 2009 Brown House Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.nReproduction in any form without permission of MortgageNewsDaily.com is prohibited.

About the Author

devteam

Steven A Feinberg (@CPAsteve) of Appletree Business Services LLC, is a PASBA member accountant located in Londonderry, New Hampshire.

See all blogs
Share

Comments

Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply

Latest Articles

Real Estate Investors Skip Paying Loans While Raising Billions

By John Gittelsohn August 24, 2020, 4:00 AM PDT Some of the largest real estate investors are walking away from Read More...

Late-Stage Delinquencies are Surging

Aug 21 2020, 11:59AM Like the report from Black Knight earlier today, the second quarter National Delinquency Survey from the Read More...

Published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

It was recently published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which is about as official as you can Read More...