Consumer Confidence in Housing is Building

As reported last week, The Zillow® U.S. Composite Housing Confidence Index™ (ZHCI) rose to 67.4 in January, an increase of 3.2 points from its level six months earlier and up 3.6 points year-over-year, indicating continued growth in positive housing sentiment within local real estate markets across the country.

Analysis of the indicator indices underlying the headline ZHCI reveals the drivers of housing confidence levels and their changes over time.

In most of the cities surveyed by Pulsenomics, renters’ confidence in their local housing market has increased more quickly than that of homeowners over the past year, although not nearly fast enough to close the tenure gap reported by Zillow last week. The graphic below illustrates this gap, as well as the changes in the indicators that drive the headline housing confidence number.