Rosier Economic Sentiment Boosts Housing Attitudes in January

Matthew Classick

202-752-3662

WASHINGTON, DC – The Fannie Mae Home Purchase Sentiment Index® (HPSI) increased by 2 percentage points in January to 82.7, ending a five-month decline. Four of the six components that comprise the HPSI were up in January. The net share of Americans who believe that home prices will go up in the next 12 months rose by 7 percentage points, and the net share reporting significantly higher household income in the past 12 months rose by 5 percentage points. The net percentage of those who say that it is a good time to sell a house rose by 2 percentage points, while the net share of those who say it is a good time to buy a house fell by 3 percentage points. On net, consumers demonstrated slightly greater confidence about not losing their jobs, while the net share of those who believe mortgage rates will go down remained unchanged.

“Three months after the presidential election, measures of consumer optimism regarding personal financial prospects and the economy are at or near the highest levels we’ve seen in the nearly seven-year history of the National Housing Survey,” said Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae. “However, any significant acceleration in housing activity will depend on whether consumers’ favorable expectations are realized in the form of income gains sufficient to offset constrained housing affordability. If consumers’ anticipation of further increases in home prices and mortgage rates materialize over the next 12 months, then we may see housing affordability tighten even more.”

HOME PURCHASE SENTIMENT INDEX – COMPONENT HIGHLIGHTS

Fannie Mae’s 2017 Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) increased in January by 2 percentage points to 82.7. The HPSI is up 1.2 percentage points compared with the same time last year.

• The net share of Americans who say it is a good time to buy a house fell by 3 percentage points to 29%, matching the survey low from May and September 2016.
• The net percentage of those who say it is a good time to sell rose by 2 percentage points to 15%.
• The net share of Americans who say that home prices will go up increased by 7 percentage points in January to 42%.
• The net share of those who say mortgage rates will go down over the next 12 months remained constant this month at -55%.
• The net share of Americans who say they are not concerned about losing their job rose 1 percentage point to 69%.
• The net share of Americans who say their household income is significantly higher than it was 12 months ago rose 5 percentage points to 15% in January, reversing the drop in December.

ABOUT FANNIE MAE’S HOME PURCHASE SENTIMENT INDEX

The Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) distills information about consumers’ home purchase sentiment from Fannie Mae’s National Housing Survey® (NHS) into a single number. The HPSI reflects consumers’ current views and forward-looking expectations of housing market conditions and complements existing data sources to inform housing-related analysis and decision making. The HPSI is constructed from answers to six NHS questions that solicit consumers’ evaluations of housing market conditions and address topics that are related to their home purchase decisions. The questions ask consumers whether they think that it is a good or bad time to buy or to sell a house, what direction they expect home prices and mortgage interest rates to move, how concerned they are about losing their jobs, and whether their incomes are higher than they were a year earlier.

ABOUT FANNIE MAE’S NATIONAL HOUSING SURVEY

The most detailed consumer attitudinal survey of its kind, Fannie Mae’s National Housing Survey (NHS) polled 1,000 Americans via live telephone interview to assess their attitudes toward owning and renting a home, home and rental price changes, homeownership distress, the economy, household finances, and overall consumer confidence. Homeowners and renters are asked more than 100 questions used to track attitudinal shifts, six of which are used to construct the HPSI (findings are compared with the same survey conducted monthly beginning June 2010). As cell phones have become common and many households no longer have landline phones, the NHS contacts 60 percent of respondents via their cell phones (as of October 2014). For more information, please see the Technical Notes. Fannie Mae conducts this survey and shares monthly and quarterly results so that we may help industry partners and market participants target our collective efforts to stabilize the housing market in the near-term, and provide support in the future. The January 2017 National Housing Survey was conducted between January 1, 2017 and January 21, 2017. Most of the data collection occurred during the first two weeks of this period. Interviews were conducted by Penn Schoen Berland, in coordination with Fannie Mae.

DETAILED HPSI & NHS FINDINGS

For detailed findings from the January 2017 Home Purchase Sentiment Index and National Housing Survey, as well as a brief HPSI overview and detailed white paper, technical notes on the NHS methodology, and questions asked of respondents associated with each monthly indicator, please visit the Surveys page on fanniemae.com. Also available on the site are in-depth special topic studies, which provide a detailed assessment of combined data results from three monthly studies of NHS results.

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