No Housing Recovery Until 2014, Survey Says

More than half of U.S. adults surveyed think the housing market won't bounce back until 2014 or later, reports Inman News. But for some people, even the promise of a real estate recovery might not be enough to entice them to take the plunge and become homeowners: 40 percent of renters surveyed said they will never buy a home. Inman News has the full story.

With home prices threatening to double-dip nationwide, most consumers don't expect a housing recovery in the near term, according to a survey from property search and marketing site Trulia and foreclosure data site RealtyTrac.

Market research firm Harris Interactive conducted an online survey on behalf of the sites from April 15-19, 2011. The survey garnered 2,018 responses from U.S. adults -- 1,257 were homeowners, 704 were renters, and 57 identified themselves as neither. More than half of respondents, 54 percent, believe the housing market won't recover until 2014 or later, up from 34 percent in a similar survey in November 2010.

While many experts predicted an improvement in the housing market this year, "We're actually backtracking," said Pete Flint, Trulia's CEO.

"Foreclosures still continue to be a major part of the housing market, and as a result housing prices continue to drop. Even with mortgage rates still below 5 percent, the fact is, against a backdrop of joblessness, (even high affordability has) made consumers more skeptical where the housing market is concerned."

For instance, renters who were interested in buying a home said they would wait two years before doing so, Flint said.

He predicted it would be another 18 months before home prices begin to stabilize.

"I expect the rest of 2011 to continue to be volatile," he said. "Buyers can anticipate a big summer clearance on real estate," he added.

Rick Sharga, senior vice president of RealtyTrac, expects prices to bottom this year.

"We're not expecting a bounce off that bottom. (Prices will) flat-line there for the next couple of years and (we won't see) prices increasing in any real manner until, best-case scenario, 2014," Sharga said.

While most survey respondents also chose 2014 as the light at the end of the tunnel for the housing market, 24 percent of respondents -- the same share as in the November survey -- believe the market will recover in 2013. Some 15 percent of respondents say the market will recover in 2012, down from 27 percent six months ago.

Three percent think the market will recover at the end of this year, down from 10 percent six months ago. The same share, 5 percent, thought the market had already recovered.

Neither Flint nor Sharga believed the possibility that the mortgage interest deduction would be eliminated was keeping buyers away from the market.

Nevertheless, about 40 percent of surveyed renters said they won't ever buy a home. "That suggests that it's really a bad time to take away the incentives for people to buy homes," Sharga said.

Read the full story at Inman News.