Today’s Eeyore Award for most foolishly pessimistic news goes to the National Center for Credit Counseling (NCCC).
Recently, the NCCC released the results of a survey they commissioned. Frankly, I think the results they’ve come up with are probably unreliable and not representative of the American public. Nevertheless, the results were interesting, and can be summed up as follows:
- Half of the survey respondents no longer believe home ownership is a reliable way to build wealth
- One third of the survey respondents don’t think they’ll ever be able to buy a home
- 42% of former home owners think they’ll never be able to buy another one
- 31% of current home owners expect they’ll never get to upgrade their current home or buy a second home
Frankly, the National Center for Credit Counseling should be ashamed of itself. I see a lot of great news here, yet to NCCC, the sky is falling. So here’s the other side of the story:
- Half of the survey respondents do believe home ownership is a reliable way to build wealth
- Two thirds of the survey respondents expect they will be able to buy a home
- 58% of former home owners expect they’ll be home owners again in the future
- 69% of current home owners expect they’ll be able to buy a nicer home or even a second home sometime in the future
It does seem reasonable that the current economic situation may have soured some people on the notion of home ownership, but I suspect that opinion is based on emotional turmoil rather than a genuine understanding of the underlying real estate market and the long-term trends it embodies.
Nevertheless, it gives rise to an important question: What real estate INVESTMENT strategies will make the most sense in the near future? Let us know where you expect the biggest action in the coming years using the poll below:
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