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The new numbers add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the U.S. housing sector is slowly rebounding.
April 2
Americans are more hopeful about the housing market than they have been in six years.
Fifty-one percent of Americans expect average home prices in their area to rise in the coming year, according to a
That's the highest total since 2007, when the share of Americans who expected home prices to rise hovered around 50%.
Sixty-two percent of Americans who earn $75,000 or more a year say they expect home values to rise, compared with 45% of people who earn between $30,000 and $75,000 a year, and 49% of people who earn less than $30,000.
Sixty-three percent of homeowners say their house is worth more now than when they bought it, up from 53% of homeowners last year but down from 90% of homeowners in 2006.
"Americans are as bullish on the housing market as they have been at any time since before the housing bubble burst several years ago," Gallup's Jeffrey Jones wrote in a blog post that accompanied the results. "This surely reflects the stabilization of the housing market, and the fact that home prices are generally heading up in most parts of the country."
"Still, the effects of the housing slump have not completely vanished," Jones added.
Sixty-two percent of Americans in the West say they feel optimistic about home values, compared with 49% of residents in the East, 48% of people in the South and 44% of residents of the Midwest.
Americans who say they live in suburban areas tend to be more bullish than the rest of the country, with 61% saying they expect prices to rise in the coming year, compared with 56% of city residents and 38% of people who say they live in a town or rural area.
Americans ages 50 and older say their home is worth more than when they bought it (71%), compared with 52% of people between the ages of 18 and 49.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans (73%) say now is a good time to buy a house, roughly the same percentage as in 2009 and the highest share since 2003, when a record 81% of adults said it was a good time to buy.
The survey is based on interviews with of roughly 2,000 adults that were conducted between April 4 and April 14.
