Confidence in housing is again at an all-time high in the Fannie Mae Home Purchase Sentiment Index® (HPSI), showing the share of home sellers who believe now is a good time to sell reaching a new record in June—a sure sign of a seller’s market. The HPSI overall posted 88.3, up 2.1 percentage points from May.
“The June HPSI reading matches the previous record set in February and reflects the trend toward a sellers’ market that respondents indicated last month,” says Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae. “Consumers are also growing more optimistic about their ability to get a mortgage, and lenders expect credit standards to ease further going forward.”
The share of sellers who believe now is a good time to sell moved up seven percentage points in June to 39 percent, according to the HPSI. The share of homebuyers who believe now is a good time to buy, at the same time, also rose, but by just three percentage points to 30 percent.
Those surveyed who believe home prices will keep climbing jumped, as well—six percentage points to 46 percent—following a backtrack in May. Those surveyed who believe mortgage rates will lower in the next 12 months moved up three percentage points to 49 percent.
“While consumer optimism on is as high as we’ve seen in the survey’s seven-year history, it’s worth nothing that this record is relative to the fairly tight standards in place post-crisis,” Duncan says. “Nevertheless, in the face of very tight housing supply, easing credit standards may fail to have the desired effect and could have the unintended consequence of fueling further house price increases.”
Source: Fannie Mae
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