Survey shows many believe now is the best time to buy

While the housing market seems to have reached its lowest in the recent months, many Americans still believe that now is a good time to buy, anticipating that renting will be much more expensive than owning a house.

The latest housing survey conducted by Fannie Mae shows that the number of Americans who believe buying a home now is a good idea has increased from 64 percent at the start of the year to 70 percent this month.

Seventy-eight percent of the respondents also believe that home prices will either remain static or increase over the next year while 85 percent believes the same will be true for rental prices.

The survey also showed that more Americans expects that rental rates will be significantly higher than home prices, and will hike up by 3.5 percent on the average compared to only 0.9 percent for home prices.

Erate.com also suggests that the large number of shadow inventory of expected foreclosures, as well as the presence of other looming factors that could increase the risk of other waves of foreclosures, should be enough to keep home prices down to low levels.

But, according to the survey, the number of Americans who believed that housing is a safe investment slightly decreased by 3 points and 16 percentage points from the 2003 survey results. The housing market, however, still managed to land a second spot in preferred investments next to opening a savings or money market account.

Fannie Mae says that the survey only showed that consumers have a relative feeling towards the housing market and homeownership.

The survey results could be an indication that people are becoming more practical in their investments approach and are likely weighing the current scenarios within the housing market before deciding on whether to purchase or not. This could actually help the market sustain its viability in the long term.

The survey done between June and July of this year was compared to the results of the surveys made earlier this and in 2003. The results also showed that 54 percent thinks that getting a loan is more difficult today, which is actually 6 points lower than the January survey results.

But, the number of Americans who said that they would more likely rent than buy a house is up by 30 percent from the January figures.