Fannie Mae's National Housing Survey

Fannie Mae has released the latests findings of their National Housing Survey that polled homeowners and renters between June 2010 and July 2010. These findings were compared to a similar survey released in April  (See the Center's April 22 blog post about that here). 

The Survey has some interesting facts and figures to digest:

Regarding purchasing a home:

• 70% of Americans believe it’s a good time to buy a home - even with all of the issues we've been hearing about in the housing industry.  This number is up from 64% of respondents from the earlier survey conducted in January.
• A large majority (78%) believe home prices have either bottomed or will rise over the next year, up from 73 percent in January.

Here's a great quote from the press release of the survey:

“Although most Americans believe that home prices have bottomed, they are adopting a much more cautious approach toward buying,” said Doug Duncan, Vice President and Chief Economist, Fannie Mae.

The Center believes that potential homebuyers should ALWAYS be cautious when buying their first home.  That's why we offer the state's premier homebuyer (pre-purchase) education curriculum, Home Stretch.  To learn more about Home Stretch, and other services for homebuyers, visit the Center's website here.

The survey has interesting information about CURRENT homeowners as well:

• 22% of mortgage holders (homeowners) said that they have reduced their mortgage debt “significantly” over the past year, while 27 percent say they have reduced their non-mortgage debt significantly. (!!)
• Nearly 20% of homeowners know someone who has strategically defaulted, or stopped making their mortgage payments even when they could afford to make them.

The survey also has interesting data about housing attitudes from minority groups including African Americans and Latinos. 

For more information about the survey and to see the complete report, visit Fannie Mae's website, here.