Fannie Mae’s Housing Sentiment Index Ties Record High

The Fannie Mae Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) saw a 2.1 percent uptick in June to 88.3, matching its peak measurement from February of this year. On a year-over-year measurement, the HPSI saw a 5.1 percent increase.

 

Fannie Mae reported that the net share of Americans who believed it is a good time to buy a home was 30 percent in June, a three percent increase from May. The net percentage of those who say it is a good time to sell was up seven percent to 39 percent, which marked a new survey high for the second consecutive month. Furthermore, the net share of Americans who say that home prices will go up increased by six percentage points in June to 46 percent while the net share of those who say mortgage rates will go down over the next 12 months rose three percentage points to -49 percent. Fannie Mae polled 1,000 adults for this survey.

 

“The June HPSI reading matches the previous record set in February and reflects the trend toward a sellers’ market that respondents indicated last month,” said 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, as shown in our Mortgage Lender Sentiment Survey. While consumer optimism on this metric is as high as we’ve seen in the survey’s seven-year history, it’s worth noting that this record is relative to the fairly tight standards in place post-crisis when we started collecting National Housing Survey data. 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.”

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