Fannie Mae’s latest National Housing Survey shows that the majority of Americans continue to expect no change in mortgage rates over the next 12 months. However, their expectations for home prices have improved for the fourth month in a row, with respondents expecting prices to go up by 1 percent, on average, during the year.
Of the consumers surveyed, 44 percent expect their personal financial situation to improve, up from 40 percent a month ago, and 30 percent of Americans believe the economy is on the right track, up from 22 percent last month and up for the third straight month since November 2011.
Highlights of the monthly survey include:
Twenty-eight percent of respondents expect home prices to increase over the next 12 months (up 2 percentage points since last month), while 16 percent say they expect home prices to decline (down 2 percentage points since last month). Fifty-one percent say prices will stay the same.
Only 8 percent of Americans say that mortgage rates will go down in the next 12 months, down 2 percentage points from December.
The percentage of respondents who say it is a good time to buy stayed at 71 percent in January, while the percentage who say it is a good time to sell dropped by 1 percentage point to 10 percent.
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