Uncork that champagne – the housing market is hitting bottom!
Are homeowners here in Massachusetts and across the Northeast the most deluded in the country?
The results of Zillow.com’s quarterly Homeowners Confidence Survey certainly raise that question.
Roughly a third of homeowners surveyed by Zillow.com in the Northeast believe the value of their little piece of the market is headed up, up and away over the next six months.
By contrast, just 23 percent saw it falling.
Overall, just 57 percent think the value of their home fell over the past year. Instead, nearly 80 percent of homes across the Northeast fell in value.
Still, overconfidence seems to be the norm for homeowners across the country – even if we hold the edge in this dubious category.
Three out of four homeowners surveyed by Zillow.com predict the value of their castles will remain flat or increase over the next six months.
There’s a big difference between the market hitting bottom and anything like the crazed bidding wars and price increases of the past boom.
Even if we are hitting the trough here, prices are likely to continue falling for months. When prices finally stop falling, the market may simply go sideways, with prices and sales bumping along the bottom.
All anyone has to do is look at the last serious real estate downturn around here back in the early 1990s.
That took more than a decade to climb out of.
