Zillow Q3 2017 Home Price Expectations Survey – Summary & Comments

On August 21, 2017, the Zillow Q3 2017 Home Price Expectations Survey results were released.  This survey is done on a quarterly basis.

An excerpt from the press release:

The panelists expect a future recession to have a moderate impact on the U.S. housing market overall, but some markets are more at risk than others. More than 60 percent of experts say the next recession will have a major impact on the San Francisco and Miami housing markets, and at least half predict a major impact in Los Angeles and New York as well.

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Various Q3 2017 Zillow Home Price Expectations Survey charts are available, including that seen below:



As one can see from the above chart, the average expectation is that the residential real estate market, as depicted by the U.S. Zillow Home Value Index, will continually climb.

The detail of the Q3 2017 Home Price Expectations Survey (pdf) is interesting.  Of the 100+ survey respondents, only five (of the displayed responses) forecasts a cumulative price decrease through 2021, and only one of those forecasts is for a double-digit percentage decline.  That forecast is from Mark Hanson, who foresees a 24.47% cumulative price decrease through 2021.

The Median Cumulative Home Price Appreciation for years 2017-2021 is seen as 5.00%, 9.22%, 13.01%, 16.22%, and 19.33%, respectively.

For a variety of reasons, I continue to believe that even the most “bearish” of these forecasts (as seen in Mark Hanson’s above-referenced forecast) will prove too optimistic in hindsight.  From a longer-term historical perspective, such a decline is very mild in light of the wild excesses that occurred over the “bubble” years.

I have written extensively about the residential real estate situation.  For a variety of reasons, it is exceedingly complex.  While many people continue to have an optimistic view regarding future residential real estate prices, in my opinion such a view is unsupported on an “all things considered” basis.  Furthermore, from these price levels there exists outsized potential for a price decline of severe magnitude, unfortunately.  I discussed this downside, based upon historical price activity, in the October 24, 2010 post titled “What’s Ahead For The Housing Market – A Look At The Charts.”

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The Special Note summarizes my overall thoughts about our economic situation

SPX at 2425.73 as this post is written