Zillow poll: McCain or Obama better for housing?

The real estate website Zillow conducted an online poll among its users asking which Presidential candidate was better-suited to solve the housing crisis. From an Inman News story:

A new survey published Friday -- conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of real estate Web site Zillow.com -- found that between the two major presidential candidates, 58 percent of Americans think Sen. Barack Obama will better address the current state of the housing market than Sen. John McCain (42 percent).

According to the survey of 2,016 U.S. adults, the perception of who is better to address the housing market is heavily influenced by whether respondents own a home, which represents approximately two-thirds (64 percent) of U.S. adults. Among non-homeowners, some 67 percent think Obama will better address the housing market than McCain (33 percent). Among current homeowners, 52 percent of homeowners think Obama will better address the market versus the 48 percent who think McCain will...

The survey also showed housing market issues are among the top three most important issues affecting the United States that the new president should be prepared to address after taking office. The most import issues are energy/gas prices (82 percent), U.S. debt (70 percent) and housing/mortgage/foreclosure (63 percent), although this varies based on which candidate respondents plan to vote for...

For example, of the 41 percent who said they plan to vote for Obama in November, 71 percent think housing/mortgage/foreclosure issues are among the most important compared with 52 percent of those who plan to vote for McCain.

According to the Zillow survey, 14 percent of adults say they don't know who they plan to vote for; 6 percent declined to answer; and 7 percent say they do not plan to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Homeowners clueless or in denial about values?

According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, a Zillow.com poll shows that 62% of homeowners across the U.S. think the value of their homes actually rose over the last year. So are homeowners in denial or just clueless? Well, considering that high school drop-out rates are reaching worrisome levels and people claim they never understood the loan documents they were signing, I'm going to have to vote for clueless, and thus ripe victims for scammers of all types:

In its second-quarter survey, released Wednesday, Zillow said that 62% of the 1,361 homeowners who responded said they believe the value of their home increased over the previous year.

But according to Zillow, that high level of optimism is out of sync with reality. Zillow's data show that 77% of U.S. homes depreciated in value over the past year, while only 19% appreciated.

The survey also found that homeowners plan to invest in their homes over the next six months. About 56% of all respondents said they would be spending money on improvements. Of those, about 17% said they would be spending money on major improvements, while 49% said they would be investing in minor improvements.

When asked about government efforts to bail out homeowners facing foreclosure, 48% of those surveyed said they oppose such efforts, even though 90% reported that foreclosures have occurred in their local market and 80% anticipate that the rate of foreclosures over the next six months will remain steady.