The second quarter Consumer Outlook Survey just released by Prudential Real Estate, an HSF Affiliates LLC company, portrayed a particularly positive viewpoint of the housing market, with millennials at the forefront of the sanguine stats. A solid 80 percent of respondents between the ages of 25 and 34 said their perception of the housing market is “favorable” or “somewhat favorable”– a buoyant 9 percent increase from the Q1 study.
In addition, confidence in real estate and home values overall jumped sharply, reaching 83 percent, compared to the already rosy 77 percent in the Q1 study.
“If you start to think about millennials a bit, what’s important to them translates well to the context of housing–the sense of community, the need to feel connected,” says Earl Lee, chief executive officer of HSF Affiliates LLC and president of Prudential Real Estate. “With a home, you have that community, as well as a sense of security, a place to live and possibly bring up a family. These are all issues that are pretty dominant in their thought process. Prior to this survey, I didn’t think they were that focused on it, but obviously if you drill it down to what’s important, you can see why housing is a major aspect of what they view as the American dream.”
Among all respondents, 70 percent said that finding the right home and community is crucial to family happiness. Millennials were even more emphatic about the emotional side of homeownership: 93 percent favor a home for “more space for my family,” while only 75 perent view it as “financial security to borrow against.”
