Zillow’s latest “Homeowner Confidence” survey came out yesterday, and as usual, provides an interesting look into the psychology of the market.
…in the hardest-hit region of the country, the Western states, homeowners continued to be overly optimistic when evaluating the value of their own homes.
Nationwide, when asked about their own home’s value over the past year:
- 25% think their home’s value has increased
- 26% think their home’s value has stayed the same
- 49% think their home’s value has decreased
In reality, 72 percent of U.S. homes lost value over the past year, and 22 percent of homes increased in value.
Drilling down into the more detailed release (pdf), you can see that out here in the west, homeowners still seem to be the most overly optimistic bunch in the country.
53% of homeowners in the west believe their home has declined in value in the last year, while 28% believe their homes have increased in value. In reality (according to Zillow), 78% of homes have declined in value, and only 17% have increased.
Meanwhile, only 15% of homeowners in the west expect their home’s value to decrease during the next six months, which is not too surprising given that nearly half the people surveyed base their belief in a housing market bottom on “general good news about the economy.”
With the stock market continuing to surge (quite likely due to a growing dollar carry trade) and the mainstream press giddily pumping an alleged recovery while all but completely ignoring the fact that none of the underlying poisons in the economy have been addressed (and in fact many of the problems have been amplified), of course most people would believe that housing has bottomed.