The Realtors®' Confidence Index: Insight on Market Trends

May 21, 2009

By Jed Smith, Managing Director, Quantitative Research, and Wannasiri Chompoopet, Manager, Housing Statistics

The Realtors®' Confidence Index provides monthly information gathered from Realtors® concerning the existing home sales outlook—measuring current and future housing activity. The respondents are active market practitioners who provide answers to questions focused on current and expected future market conditions in their region:

• How would you describe the current housing market in your region?
• What are your expectations for the housing market in the next six months in your region?

The questionnaire allows for three choices of response in evaluating the housing markets: High (scored at 100), medium (scored at 50) and low (scored at 0). The index is then computed, ranging in value between a theoretical minimum of 0 to a maximum of 100. Given the current uncertainties about the real estate market outlook, we thought it would be interesting to examine the respondents’ opinions over the past year about the housing markets.

REALTOR® Confidence About Market Conditions

(Range is 0 to 100, 100 being best)

	Current	Expected	Current	Expected	Current	Expected
	Level	Outlook	Level	Outlook	Level	Outlook
Month	SF	SF	TH	TH	Condos	Condos
Jan08	26.9	37.6	16.4	22.9	13.7	19.3
Feb08	27.2	38.0	17.1	23.8	14.5	20.7
Mar08	29.5	39.2	19.0	25.1	15.2	21.2
Apr08	27.6	37.2	18.5	24.8	15.8	22.3
May08	30.5	37.8	20.9	26.4	7.5	22.7
Jun09	28.7	36.6	19.7	23.1	17.7	21.2
Jul08	28.7	32.9	19.8	21.8	16.8	18.9
Aug08	25.8	32.6	17.6	22.3	14.7	19.7
Sept08	24.7	28.1	16.1	18.8	13.8	16.3
Oct08	22.2	29.3	13.7	19.1	11.6	16.8
Nov08	21.2	31.2	13.3	19.5	11.6	17.4
Dec08	18.8	28.3	11.4	17.4	9.6	14.3
Jan09	23.0	34.0	13.1	Permanent Link | Comments (0) | Write a Comment | Send Link User Comments There are currently no user comments for this entry. Be the first to post a comment! Write a Comment Your Name:  RealTown Members: Click here to login Your E-Mail:  Your Website:  Subject:  Your Comment:  Notifications:  Notify me by email when new comments have been posted to this entry. Privacy:   Private Comment - Do not publish this comment to the public. Verification:  To verify that you are a human and not a script, please enter the verification word from the image into the box on the right.