Despite the welter of uncertain news about the housing market, optimism among home owners is on the up with more than one third expecting house prices to be higher in 12 months’ time.
Furthermore, nearly half (46%) regard today’s house prices as fair and reasonable.
According to a consumer confidence survey released by Rightmove, the public is the most upbeat for two years.
Those who cite concerns give mortgage-related issues such as mortgage availability and high deposits as one of the main reasons for their views.
But the biggest worry for half of buyers is being able to find a suitable property.
The huge survey of over 40,000 home movers showed that relatively few (6%) are worried about being able to meet mortgage payments. The same proportion is concerned about house prices changing.
Despite the housing slump of the last three years, ambitions for home ownership have not been dented by the recession.
Meanwhile, separate new research carried out among 2,000 adults for the AA Home Emergency Response service is similarly upbeat.
It reveals that of those who have bought their first home since the 2008 housing peak, 37% feel they can realistically aspire to owning a detached home.
The equivalent figure for those who bought for the first time in the 1970s is 39%, falling to 33% for first-time buyers in the 80s, and 32% for those entering the housing market in the 1990s.
Aspirations for the size of home have increased: for those buying for the first time since 2008, 22% have set their eyes on a detached house with four or five bedrooms, and 3% expect eventually to own a home with six or more bedrooms, three times the proportion of those getting their first mortgage in the 1980s.
Both men and women are equally bullish in their belief that a detached home will be within their reach, but it’s the younger generation who are most likely to feel this will be at the upper end of the market: 7% of 18 to 24-year-olds believe they will end up owning a detached home with six or more bedrooms.
The 1980s is remembered as the decade in which Margaret Thatcher’s Government heavily promoted the benefits of home ownership. However, for a quarter (24%) of those buying in that decade, a terrace home was the limit of their ambitions.
Only 15% of those buying for the first time since 2008 believe their ultimate home will be a terrace, and just 11% believe that the pinnacle of their home ownership will be an apartment.
Comments
Happy Chappy: You and me in violent agreement about statistics once again? :o)
"...more people 32.3% expect prices to be lower in years time rather than higher 24.2%
Yet more people think it will be better to buy 60.4% now rather than in one year 25.5%??"
Of course the above is correct. Ish. Think about it - the first two percentages left the balance - 43.5% - not knowing which to pick. As they felt that they had to tick ONE box, then the majority would tick the first box, which in this case would be to 'buy NOW rather than in 12 months'. Add 24.2% to 43.5% - you get 67.7%, but like I said a few were always gonna tick Box 2 "cos they can".
THEN you factor in personal greed. Only 5% of vendors thought it was a good time to sell now, because they all firmly believe that their castle will be worth more in twelve months REGARDLESS of what happens in the real world. These are the same people who won't BUY today, because everything will be ten percent cheaper next year, of course... ;o)
"7% of 18 to 24-year-olds believe they will end up owning a detached home with six or more bedrooms." At fifteen I wanted to be a pilot - by seventeen I was selling houses for a living. I STILL would like to be a pilot...
Funnily enough, one lad in class desperately wanted to be a brickie - just like his Uncle Tom. He now flies for RyanAir! Where's the justice in that, I want to know?
All these statistics to chew on - makes you all warm inside, dunnit?
Peebee - Interesting point however, reading the survey more people 32.3% expect prices to be lower in years time rather than higher 24.2%
Yet more people think it will be better to buy 60.4% now rather than in one year 25.5%??
Yet only 5% think its a good time to sell now rather than 29.6% who think it will be better to sell in year???
Clearly very mixed up people were surveyed.
You've gotta laugh - haven't you!
IF this article was entitled "Public PESSimistic about outlook for housing market", then there would have been three hundred postings gleefully welcoming the impending (...and VEEEERY long-awaited...) crash.
Funny how four little letters change the whole slant on things... ;o)
Oh dear Jonnie the truth hurts then.
@In The Mirror
Sir, as I assume by your post you have never had to work with a vendor to get a price reduction, you always get them at the right price every time, and never have to compromise and accept an instruction at a higher price than you recommended then I consider you to be the stuff of legends and flawless – I bow to your superiority.
You are an EA god
Jonnie
You should have put it on at the right price in the first place Jonnie, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Hey - thanks Hawkeye - when you add all those percentages up they make 281% which shows that there's more value in the market these days - when I started you only got 100% maximum...
It’s the haves and not haves locking horns again – ive said before that despite our HPC regulars here bringing us all the gloomy bits to us to chew on / debate/ dismiss / fight like dogs over there are a great many people out there that are doing very well and life goes on without to much doom and gloom, people are still buying houses and feel confident about the future, in fact according to this just under half of the population feels this way.
Anyway, confidence is the issue isn’t it? But good god, stuff like this doesn’t make an EA’s job any easier when trying to argue for a price reduction with a vendor!
Jonnie
Wow look at all those %ages in this article. Anybody know what they mean or is this another load of tosh to pad out the pages.
The %ages listed are:-
46
6
37
39
33
32
28
3
7
24
15
and finally
11
It's real exciting (innit!)
Anyone give a rats?
How do you expect anyone to start ranting about Rightmove if you leave Rightmove out out the title or the first paragraph?
Very few people will get to the 3rd paragraph.
"optimism among home owners is on the up with more than one third expecting house prices to be higher in 12 months’ time.".........................They can expect what they like. (or more precisely what they would like to happen). A lot of people expected the Titanic to make a successful crossing of the Atlantic.