Americans Increasingly Pessimistic About Home Ownership, Survey Says

[Jun 5, 2008.]

A survey issued by Associated Press-AOL Money & Finance reveals today that most Americans don't intend to purchase a home at any point in the near future. These unsurprising results evince a wider trend of despairing attitudes among the public about the U.S. credit and housing crisis.

The survey, carried out between the days of March 24 and April 3 by Abt SRBI, Inc was a series of question-and-answer sessions over the phone with 1,002 randomly chosen American adults, including 769 homeowners. More than a quarter of these 769 homeowners expressed the fear that the value of their property will decrease within the next two years.

Meanwhile, approximately one out of every seven of the homeowners surveyed who is still paying off his or her mortgage has expressed trepidation over whether or not he or she will be able to make payments on his or her mortgage on time - even within the next six months.

The prices of houses are lower than ever before. Unfortunately, many current homeowners are reluctant to buy homes because they would lose a substantial amount of money by selling their current homes.

One of the homeowners interviewed for the survey summed up the situation. “This is a great time to buy, but not necessarily sell,” stated Robert Jackson of Missouri during the course of his telephone interview.

Fully 60% of the survey respondents agreed with Jackson. Despite the low cost of housing today, those 60% of respondents stated that they are certain they do not plan to buy a home within the next two years. This figure is significantly higher than the response to the same survey less than two years ago. In September 2006, only 53% of the respondents to the same AP poll didn't intend to buy a home within two years.

Meanwhile, the percentage of people surveyed in 2008 who do intend to buy a home within the next to years is only 11%. That figure was 15% in 2006.

The margin of error for the survey was plus or minus approximately 3.1%, with larger margins for smaller subgroups of survey respondents.