My Vote and the Value of My Home

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a few weeks ago we fielded Zillow’s Q3 Homeowner Confidence Survey in the midst of Wall Street’s most turbulent week – asking homeowners what they think has happened to the value of their own homes over the past year, and what they think will happen in the coming 6 months.

We were surprised to learn that a sizeable number of homeowners still think their own homes are isolated from home value declines – with 49% believing their own home’s value either increased or stayed the same over the past year (and thus 51% thinking their home’s value declined), despite actual year-over-year declines on three-quarters of U.S. homes.

Along with these questions, we also asked homeowners who they plan to vote for in the coming presidential election, and were able to analyze the results according to planned McCain voters and planned Obama voters. Here’s what we found:

• Half (50%) of McCain voters believe their own home’s value has decreased over the past year, 18% think the value has remained steady, and 32% think their home’s value has increased.
• More than half (56%) of Obama voters believe their own home’s value has decreased over the past year. 16% think the value has remained steady, and 28% think their home’s value has increased.

With 74% of U.S. homes showing year-over-year declines in Q3, McCain voters as a group appear to be slightly more optimistic (or less realistic) about their own homes in the current market. When we asked the question about the future, we found a similar difference:

• 22% of McCain voters believe their home’s value will increase in the coming 6 months, while 42% believe it will stay the same, and 36% believe their home’s value will decrease.
• Among planned Obama voters, 19% think their home’s value will increase, 37% think it will stay the same, and 44% think it will decrease.

Not sure what to make of this, but based on the conversation around my last post, I’m sure this community has some opinions…