RISMEDIA, February 5, 2010—Forward looking confidence amongst real estate brokers and agents in the United States dropped marginally in January 2010, pushing the national Real Estate Confidence Index (RECI) down to 5.76 on the scale of one to ten (1 “bad” – 10 “good”), or 2.54% lower versus the December 2009 reading of 5.91, Point2 Technologies recently announced.
The national RECI, which tracks the forward looking market sentiment of licensed real estate professionals in every U.S. state, dropped for the second month in a row after a record jump of 7.87% in November 2009 when the Index hit a record high of 6.03.
All three components that make up the RECI declined in January, versus December 2009.
The Long Term (12–18 months) optimism/pessimism variable slipped by 3.09% to 6.59 on the one to ten scale. Factoring in the decline, the majority of RECI survey respondents (69.4%) remained conservatively optimistic for the long term, rating the component in positive territory, above the 5.0 median.
In addition, 18.9% of the respondents gave the 12–18 month outlook component a rating of seven, 17.5% gave it a score of 8, and 9.9% gave it a score of 9 out of 10. 10.3% of the respondents were extremely optimistic and gave the variable the top rating, a 10.
Underscoring relatively stronger expectations for the near term, the Short Term (3–6 months) optimism/pessimism RECI component remained virtually flat and came in at 5.88, a -0.68% drop versus December 2009.
The third component, the Current Sentiment, slipped back into negative territory to 4.82 (-3.79%) on a seasonally adjusted basis, pressuring the overall Index after holding for two consecutive months above the 5.0 median.
A number of respondents to the RECI survey around the country referenced the expanded federal tax credit as a catalyst for potentially good market activity expected through April 30, 2010, underscoring some brokers and agents’ relative reliance on government incentives and, in cases, optimism for the next several months (3–6 month outlook). Decreased uncertainty in the market following the expiration of the current federal program is also reflected in the survey results, with the decline of the Long Term optimism/pessimism component of the RECI.
The monthly RECI survey of over 50,000 brokers and agents is conducted by online real estate listing syndication and website solution provider Point2 (www.Point2.com) to provide a unique, street level view of the future of the market without dependence, bias or attempt to project into the future using methodologies that leverage past performance data or mathematical projections, applied in most market reports and surveys.
