Economic instability caused by the coronavirus pandemic drove consumer confidence for home buying to plummet to its lowest point since December 2016,
The Fannie Mae Home Purchase Sentiment Index notched a record drop: decreasing from
"Attitudes about the current home-selling environment deteriorated markedly, falling to their lowest level since January 2017," Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae, said in a press release.
Only 54% expressed no concern of losing their job in the next 12 months, falling from 72% last month and 80% the year before.
A 20% share of consumers claimed March was a good time to buy a home, decreasing from 27% in February and 22% in March 2019. Even starker: only 16% said it was a good time to sell compared to 45% and 43% the month and year before, respectively.
Of those who said March posed disadvantageous home-selling conditions, 47% attributed unfavorable economic conditions and 16% credited low prices. An additional 7% specifically wrote in COVID-19.
"A survey record one-month drop in optimism about the direction of the economy appears to have weakened consumers' views of both the current home-selling and home-buying environment, though the latter is likely buffered in part by low mortgage rates," Duncan said.
"When asked why it's a bad time to buy or sell a home, approximately 7% of consumers offered COVID-19 as an unprompted response, one of the highest percentages of nonstandard answers in the survey's history. We expect these developments
