Consumers Still Don’t Get It When It Comes To Home Prices And Rates

All too often, when it comes to consumer surveys about the future, the results tend to reflect what has already happened as opposed to what will continue to happen.  Of course, trends can remain intact, but other times, the writing is on the wall .   Looking back at the start of the pandemic, consumers thought the writing was on the wall with respect to home prices according the Fannie Mae’s monthly National Housing Survey.  A net of 39% of respondents thought home prices would continue to go up in early 2020.  A few short months later, more were convinced that home prices would fall .   From that point on, the net % of those who thought prices would rise  NEVER returned to the 39% pre-pandemic high.  All this despite months and months of record-setting home price appreciation.  The following chart shows this journey.  Focus on the black charted line and the horizontal level line at 39%: Consumers clearly thought the pandemic had turned a corner by early 2021.  Covid numbers were declining and price appreciation had been so surprising that, surely, things must have topped out, right? Wrong …  By September 2021, the trend reversed course (thank you, Delta variant), and the black line started to move back in a logical direction.  But even though it ticked up slightly again in the most recent survey, does it make sense for the net percentage to remain almost 10% below the pre-pandemic net percentage?