Housing Prices

Liberty Street Economics just posted about their recent housing survey. They see a sharp increase in the housing price expectations by consumers. That local level survey reinforces the expectations of the WSJ forecasters. The graph below depicts the consensus expectations for housing price growth for the year of 2017. The light yellow line shows the actual annualized growth rates. 

Liberty Street shows changes of expectations from one year to the next, but with the WSJ forecasters we are able to observe a steady increase in estimates over the last 15 months. Predictions for 2018, while lower than 2017, also have become more optimistic. This is partial due to continued rapid growth of actual house prices. Again, the data above corroborates Liberty Street's story using different data (FHFA housing price index supplied by Freddie Mac vs the Case-Shiller index used by Liberty Street). 

Housing price growth is expected to slow down, however, both consumers and financial professionals agree it will not slow down too much.