The spring homebuying season has not flourished into the fruitful market that everyone needed, with rising homes prices and lower affordability being just a couple of the factors holding Americans back.
But the good news: American’s outlook is improving toward the housing market, perhaps foreshadowing an increase in housing activity in the coming months, according to results from Fannie Mae’s April 2014 National Housing Survey.
For the third month straight, the share of respondents who believe now is a good time to sell a home increased and hit 42%, an all time survey high.
“Our April survey results suggest that consumer confidence is moving in a positive direction,” said Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae.
“Consumer attitudes about the current home selling environment have improved and now are at the most favorable level we’ve seen in the survey’s four-year history. Consistent with Friday’s upbeat jobs report, concern about job loss among employed consumers also has hit a record survey low. These results are in line with our expectations for increased housing activity and gradual strengthening of the housing market going into the spring and summer selling season,” Duncan added.
Meanwhile, the share of respondents who say now is a good time to buy a home remained steady at 69%, following a downward climb since the beginning of the year.
Dropping seven percentage points from last month, 45% of respondents thought to would be easy for them to get a home mortgage today, while 50% of people said home prices will go up in the next 12 months.
As a whole, the share of respondents who say the economy is on the right track increased 2 percentage points from last month to 35%.
