Trulia and RealtyTrac Survey: No Housing Recovery Until 2014 or Later
In a conference call with the media this morning, RealtyTrac Senior Vice President Rick Sharga and Trulia CEO Pete Flint unveiled the results of the two companies' latest survey of attitudes toward foreclosure and other issues affecting the housing market. The biggest news takeaway was that U.S. adults are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the speed of the housing recovery, with 54 percent of those surveyed saying they expect the housing market to recover in 2014 or later. That's a shift from a December survey by RealtyTrac and Trulia in which 42 percent of those surveyed thought the housing market would recover by 2012.
Some other interesting tidbits from the survey: 45 percent of those surveyed said they thought the government is not doing enough to prevent foreclosures, while 17 percent said too much is being done; and on average American adults expect to pay 38 percent less for a foreclosed home than a similar home not in foreclosure.
One new question for this iteration of the survey that I found particularly interesting was regarding whether those surveyed had experienced or knew someone who had participated in one of several activities related to foreclosure: application for or acceptance of a loan modification, stopped making mortgage payments, lost home to foreclosure, walked away from home, or sold via short sale. Nearly 30 percent of all respondents indicated they had themselves or knew someone who had participated in one of these activities, with 11 percent knowing someone who had lost a home to foreclosure and 8 percent knowing someone who had walked away from a home.
Not surprisngly, these percentages were higher in the West region, which includes many of the states hardest hit by foreclosure. In the West, 16 percent of those surveyed knew someone who had lost their home to foreclosure and 12 percent knew someone who had walked away. Possibly related to this was another question asking homeowners if they would be willing to walk away from their home if it was "underwater" (where the outstanding loan balance exceeded the value of the property). Nationwide, 44 percent of homeowners surveyed said they would at least consider walking away and 56 percent said they would never consider walking away. But the percentages were nearly flipped in the West region, where 52 percent of homeowners surveyed said they would consider walking away and 48 percent said they would never consider walking away.
Could this be an indication that homeowners are susceptible to peer pressure when it comes to walking away from their homes, and the more they know of others who have done it, the more likely they will be to do it themselves?