Housing Market News

Is Seattle's apartment market overbuilt? Some market observers believe it is, as reported in this past Sunday's Seattle Times:

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020775791_apartmentboomxml.html

Fannie Mae conducts a National Housing telephone survey each month since June 2010 to assess the attitudes of Americans toward owning and renting a home, home and rental price changes, homeowner distress, the economy, and household finances. In the latest survey, 26% of respondents increasingly find this a better time to sell a house, 73% consider it a good time to buy a house, and close to half the respondents expect both housing and rental prices to increase in the next 12 months.

For a complete report, see http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/04082013_fannie_mae_housing_survey.asp

At the end of March, it was announced that the 20-city Case-Shiller Index was up 8.1% year-over-year. A few weeks earlier, Zillow had released its latest survey of 118 economists, strategists and other experts on the expected direction of home prices over the next five years. Every one expected higher prices with the most pessimistic prediction showing an average annual increase of 3%. Clearly, there is a very broad consensus that the housing market has bottomed.