20% of Fla. home shoppers could enter the market soon

CHICAGO – July 30, 2014 – A conducted by Pollara survey and released by BMO Harris Bank found that 68 percent of Florida homeowners believe the value of their home will go up over the next 12 months, and 13 percent expect the value of their home to go down.

Over the past year, 61 percent of Floridians felt their home's value had increased, and 24 percent thought it had gone down.

"Market prices overall continue to indicate that we are in a recovery, and this was reflected in our survey results with buyer optimism," says Sheila Blom, head of Florida mortgage sales for BMO Harris Bank. "We've seen this reinforced by an increase in home buying activity this year."

Florida homebuyers

30% of those planning to buy say market activity caused them to delay a purchase
One fifth say current market activity will likely cause them to buy a new home sooner than they otherwise would

Floridians mortgage attitudes

63 percent expect rates to go up; 45 percent expect a small increase, and 18 percent anticipate a large increase
12 percent believe that rates will decrease over the next five years
A quarter believe rates will stay the same

"Housing affordability remains historically very attractive, despite rising home prices and borrowing costs coming off their lows. As a result, there continues to be decent demand for homes, assisted from firming household formation," says Michael Gregory, head of U.S. economics, BMO Capital Markets. "Although overall U.S. housing activity is experiencing slower momentum than we saw earlier in the recovery, positive developments such as the recent down-drift in mortgage rates and solid job numbers should give an added boost to housing."

At the national level

59 percent of Americans believe the value of their home will rise in the next 12 months, and the same proportion say it has risen over the last year
29 percent of potential homebuyers say they've sped up their timeline
29 percent says market changes have caused them to delay or give up
59 percent of current owners with a mortgage say they expect interest rates to rise over the next five years

Survey results come from an online sample of 2,500 Americans, including 250 from the Florida, conducted between April 1st and 7th, 2014. The margin of error for a probability sample of 2,500 is +/- 1.96 percent for the national numbers and +/- 6.2 percent for Florida results.