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Consumers say getting a mortgage is easy

Posted on March 12, 2015

McLEAN, Va. – March 12, 2015 – Fifty-four percent of Americans say that they believe getting a mortgage is easy – a record high number for Fannie Mae’s National Housing Survey, which is a monthly poll of about 1,000 Americans’ attitudes toward the housing market.

The February 2015 survey cites a strengthening employment sector and consumers’ growing economic confidence as key to their improved attitudes about the housing market.

“Continuing improvements in consumer attitudes in this month’s National Housing Survey lend support to our expectation that 2015 will be a year of the economy dragging housing upward,” says Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae. “The share of consumers who think the economy is on the right track rose to a record high since the inception of the survey nearly five years ago, and for the first time exceeded the share who believe it’s on the wrong track.”

Duncan says consumer confidence is getting a big boost from employment growth, which also leads to increasing optimism over the ease of getting a mortgage.

“We continue to see strength in attitudes about the current home buying and selling environment and consistently high shares of consumers saying they expect to buy a home on their next move,” Duncan notes. “At the same time, we still need to see further growth in consumer optimism toward personal finances and income for more robust improvement in housing market attitudes.”

Additional findings from February’s survey

The average 12-month home price change expectation remained at 2.5 percent.
The share of respondents that says home prices will go up in the next 12 months declined to 46 percent, while the share that says home prices will go down dropped to 6 percent.
The share of respondents surveyed that say mortgage rates will rise in the next 12 months returned to 48 percent.
The number of those surveyed that say it’s a good time to buy a home remained at 67 percent in February; the number that say it’s a good time to sell fell by 4 percentage points to 40 percent.
The percentage of respondents that expect their personal financial situation to improve over the next 12 months dropped to 46 percent.
The percentage that says their household income is significantly higher than it was 12 months ago dropped 5 percentage points to 24 percent.
Source: “Consumer Optimism Toward the Economy Reaches New All-Time Survey High,” Fannie Mae (March 9, 2015)

Ron Hamaty Realty Atlantic Realtor & Broker