Developed and administered by HousingIQ, housing market surveys are designed to systematically harness ears-to-the-ground local market knowledge and create new insights about the housing market. The survey instrument consists of semantic differential questions concerning expectations of house prices, sales, homeowner stress, and buyer demographics. The responses provide three distinct forward-looking measures.
- Price Expectation Index that reflects respondents’ perception of future home price trends. A value of 50 corresponds to respondents anticipating current trends to sustain over the next twelve months and a value of 100 corresponds to all respondents anticipating an improvement in price appreciation.
- Buyer Power Index to gauge the balance of bargaining power between buyers and sellers. A value of 50 corresponds to the current trend sustaining whereas a value of 100 corresponds to all respondents agreeing that the power would shift to the buyer within the next twelve months.
- Homeowner Stress Index that measures the unfavorable financial situation of homeowners. It is derived from questions that measure the anticipated change in distressed sales, delinquencies, etc. A value of 50 corresponds to respondents anticipating no change from the current situation and a value of 0 corresponds to all respondents agreeing that homeowner situation will improve within the next twelve months.
A headline Confidence Index is obtained by summarizing the three measures to reflect the prevailing expertise and wisdom of respondents.