Daily Archives: April 29, 2010

The purpose of my posts isn’t to contradict industry viewpoints but rather bring a measure of balance to them. If an article is overtly negative, I’ll counter it. If it’s optimistically euphoric, I’ll counter it as well.

So here we go: opinion polls are useless.

A new poll from CMHC has made the rounds, and some in the industry have been quick to jump on it as proof that Canadians are in great shape. 

Some highlights of the poll:

• 77% agree that now is a good time to purchase a home
• 4/5 are comfortable that their financial situation will be stable over the course of the next year
• 91% indicated that their income level should remain stable or grow over the next several years
• 68% of recent homebuyers feel there is a strong chance they will pay off their mortgage sooner than their current amortization
• 81% of homebuyers indicating that they are quite comfortable with their current level of mortgage debt.

It was an on-line survey of 2,503 recent mortgage consumers spanning February 11th to 28th, 2010.

So, let’s travel back in time again to the USA and see how fellow Americans responded in polls too:

Bloomberg, March 9 2006

Americans remain confident that housing values will continue to flourish and that the high-flying market will come in for a smooth, soft landing instead of a crash…36 percent, see prices rising.

“The likely house-price nose dive will leave Americans unable to buy the nation’s output,” said a research note last month from Gary Shilling, president of investment advisory company A. Gary Shilling & Co. in Springfield, N.J.

Most U.S. homeowners don’t agree. The majority of 2,563 adults polled from Feb. 25 to March 5, almost seven in 10, expect the value of their homes to appreciate by 5 to 30 percent during the next three years. Affluent investors are again more optimistic, with almost eight in 10 predicting such price gains.

Homeowners may be confident because they are insulated from rising interest rates. More than four of five homeowners in the poll who carry a mortgage have a fixed-rate loan.

Homeowners’ optimism about housing prices doesn’t mean they are counting on continued increases to finance their spending and retirement, the poll showed. Roughly three-quarters of the homeowners contacted had not tapped their home equity and say they don’t intend to for retirement

CNN, Sept 2004

In recent UBS/Gallup poll found that real estate is the most popular vehicle for investment in America, and that a majority of Americans surveyed think that it’s even more attractive than six months ago, when home prices were far lower. “The expectations of future home prices are spectacularly and unrealistically high,” warns Ian Morris, an economist with HSBC.

A recent survey by economics professors Robert Shiller and Karl Case found that 28% of homebuyers in Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco expect home prices to rise 20% a year for the next ten years.

USA Today Poll: December 2002

American homeowners are greeting talk of a crash in real estate prices with a shrug, according to a poll. A report issued Monday by the government suggests the view is well founded.

Gallup, May 17, 2005

Personal saving rates are at historic lows and rock-bottom interest rates have fueled debt burdens, causing some economic experts to worry about the state of personal finances for the average American household. Federal Reserve Board Governor Susan Schmidt Bies acknowledged in a recent speech that some “pockets of financial stress exist among households,” but “the sector as a whole appears to be in good shape.”

Americans don’t necessarily disagree with that assessment, given their generally upbeat responses to questions about their personal finances from two April Gallup Polls.

The majority of Americans are comfortable with their personal finances, according to an April 18-21 poll**. Fifty-seven percent claim they aren’t worried about their family finances; that number has remained stable since the beginning of the year.