Earlier this week, Charles Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, said the housing market’s fundamentals “remain sound,” with faster hiring supporting the economy, while William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, argued that he expects a slow pace for the housing market’s recovery as headwinds take some time to abate.
Meanwhile, despite mortgage rates at their lowest levels since November, applications to buy a home fell 3% week to week and are now nearly 12% lower than a year ago.
We wanted to know what you thought, so today’s poll question was: Are you optimistic or pessimistic on the growth of the US housing market?
At the time of this post, 76% said they were PESSIMISTIC; 24% were OPTIMISTIC.
(Voters sharply swung so much in one way, that we didn’t receive any comments on why people voted NO.)
Here’s what those who are PESSIMISTIC had to say:
- “The middle class is so squeezed by inflation on one side, taxes on the other. The lower class has been cut off from credit and is pushed toward renting (at all time high levels). The upper class isn’t numerous enough to make a difference. No growth in aggregate demand.”
- “Low interests asset bubbles is the most dangerous type of bubble in real estate. Bidding wars in hot markets (CA), stagnate inventories in cold markets (OH), rents rising in all markets and nothing left in the Fed's bag of tricks short of covering one's down payment.”
- “The near-term price trend for housing appears to be down, with rental properties rising, but home buyers declining. I believe this will persist into next year and will be highlighted by a stock market correction.”
- “Housing supply/demand/price trends tend to be auto correlated -- i.e. the tide turn (up or down), the trend tends to last for a while.”
- “Buying in 1-2 years... need prices to drop some.”