The FINANCIAL -- Confidence that home values will go up over the coming year has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of homeowners shows that just 11% now believe the value of their home will go up over the next 12 months. That’s down from 16% last month. Prior to the latest survey, the number who expected their home values to rise during the next year ranged from 15% to 31%.
One-in-three homeowners (33%) now expects his or her home’s value to go down in the next year, down slightly from June’s high of 37%. Fifty-three percent (53%) think their home will be worth about the same amount in a year's time.
Thirty-seven percent (37%) believe their home’s value will be higher in five years, marking little improvement from 35% in June. That number ranged from 41% to 55% in 2010. In December 2008, just after the Wall Street meltdown, 59% said their home would be worth more in five years' time.
Twenty percent (20%) expect home values to go down over the next five years, a six-point drop from last month but still a more pessimistic view than was found throughout 2010 and 2009. Thirty-five percent (35%) believe their home’s value will be about the same in five years.
The national telephone survey of 676 Homeowners was conducted on July 17-18, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
Investors (12%) aren’t any more confident than non-investors (11%) that their home values will rise over the next year. But 50% of investors expect their home to be worth more five years from now, compared to just 15% of non-investors.
Homeowners who make $75,000 or more annually are more confident than those who earn less that their home values will rise in both the short and long-term. Blacks are more confident their homes will be worth more in five years than whites and homeowners of other races are.
Married adults are a bit more confident than non-married adults about increasing home values in one and five years.
The Rasmussen Consumer Index, which measures the economic confidence of consumers on a daily basis, fell to its lowest level of 2011 on Saturday.
After dipping to a two-year low last month, the number of Americans who expect to pay higher interest rates next year has returned to levels found earlier in 2011.
Trust in the U.S. banking industry has steadily slipped over the past three months, and Americans who lack confidence now outnumber those who have a more optimistic view.
One-in-five working Americans continue to classify themselves as poor, while the number of those who consider themselves middle class has fallen to a two-year low.
Last November, the Rasmussen Employment Index capped four months of improvement by reaching its highest level since February 2008. At that time, the number of workers who reported their firms were hiring (20.5%) was nearly equal to the number reporting layoffs (20.7%). That was the best net hiring number (-0.2) since the financial industry melted down in September 2008. It also turns out to be the peak of the post-bailout era.
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