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Southern homebuyers slightly more optimistic about buying

by Timothy Inklebarger

Purchasing a home is about to get harder – that’s according to more than two-thirds of prospective homebuyers surveyed by the National Association of Home Builders.

Image provided by the National Home Builders Association.

A NAHB report notes that 68 percent of respondents surveyed in the third quarter of 2019 believe housing availability will get harder or stay about the same. That’s slightly better than the 71 percent who shared that opinion a year prior.

Only 21 percent of those surveyed said they expect that finding the right home will get easier over the next several months, according to NAHB’s Housing Trend Report.

Those numbers vary slightly depending on what part of the country you’re in.

In the South, 66 percent said they think purchasing a home will get harder. That percentage was the same for respondents in the Northeast, while 68 percent shared the sentiment in the Midwest and 72 percent in the West.

Baby boomers had a grimmer outlook, with 74 percent expecting worsening housing availability, compared to 64 percent of Gen Z buyers.

Twenty-nine percent of those surveyed said they’re seeing more homes they’d like and can afford on the market compared to three months earlier. That’s down by one percentage point from a year earlier.

Fifty-nine percent said they’re seeing fewer or the same number of homes they like and can afford, compared to three months prior. That number also is down one percentage from the previous year.

That percentage drops with age – 41 percent of Gen Z respondents said they’re seeing more homes they like and can afford from three months ago, compared to 32 percent of millennials, 23 percent of Gen Xers and 18 percent of baby boomers.

 

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