Do You Agree With Fannie Mae and Obama's Reports on Housing?

According to results from Fannie Mae’s November 2012 National Housing Survey, Americans are showing increased confidence in the housing market and the general direction of the economy, despite any uncertainty surrounding the "fiscal cliff". You can read more about the survey results here but here are some of the highlights in housing results:

• Average home price change expectation held steady at 1.7 percent.
• Fourteen percent of those surveyed say that home prices will go down in the next 12 months, a 4 percentage point increase over last month.
• The percentage who think mortgage rates will go up continued to rise, increasing 4 percentage points in November to 41 percent.
• Twenty-three percent of respondents say it is a good time to sell, a 5 percentage point increase over last month, and the highest level since the survey’s inception.
• The average rental price expectation hit 4 percent in November, a 0.9 percent rise over the past two months.
• Forty-eight percent of those surveyed say home rental prices will go up in the next 12 months, a slight decrease from last month.
• The share of respondents who said they would buy if they were going to move held relatively steady at 67 percent.
• Fifty-one percent of respondents now say it would be easy to get a mortgage, marking the highest rate since the survey’s inception.

A report from the Obama administration supports this confidence. Home prices are continuing to rebound, and more home owners are taking advantage of refinancing to lower their monthly mortgage payments. The Obama Administration’s November Housing Scorecard reports the housing market's made big strides and shows a marked improvement that has not been seen since before the housing crisis. “Six consecutive months of rising home prices have bolstered home owners' equity,” said Erika Poethig, HUD acting assistant secretary for Policy Development and Research. Nationwide home owner equity is now $1.5 trillion higher than in April 2009.

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