The value of homes in many parts of the US are down 30% since their peak in 2006. In parts of Nevada, Michigan, and California the drop is 50%. Eleven million mortgages are underwater with loan values larger than the value of the houses they were used to purchase.
Greedy homeowners, who once took out home equity loans to finance countless holidays, new cars, college tuitions and retirement, are almost impossible to find now. Moreover, there is simply not enough equity left in most homes.
Fannie Mae (FNM), the troubled government-sponsored enterprise chartered by Congress to provide liquidity to the housing and mortgage markets, has released its study of sentiments on home ownership. The poll was taken from December 12, 2009 to January 12, 2010. It was done with a random sample of 3,051 members of the general population, including 887 homeowners, 1,110 mortgage borrowers, 908 renters, and 338 underwater borrowers. Some data was compared to a Fannie Mae survey done in 2003.
The primary result of the survey was that 65% of people prefer owning a home to renting or living with family or relatives. It is hardly a surprise that 60% of those polled said that buying a home now is harder than it was for their parents. In a sign of how beaten down and pessimistic the average American is, 68% expected that it would be harder for their children to buy a home in the future. That indicates people either expect the standard of living in the US to continue to drop or that the credit markets will remain so unsettled that mortgages will continue to be hard to obtain.
The survey demonstrates that people often learn almost nothing from experience. Seven out of ten respondents said they believe buying a home continues to be one of the safest investments available. Perhaps it suggests that these people remain skeptical of equity markets. Only 17 percent believe buying stocks is a safe investment.
Naves still travel in packs. Delinquent mortgage borrowers – and even those current on their mortgage payments – are more than twice as likely to have seriously considered not making their payments if they know someone who has already defaulted.
Douglas A. McIntyre
