About 49 percent of people in a national survey believe that the value of their home has increased or stayed the same over the past year.
That’s according to a survey conducted by Zillow.com online real estate firm, of Seattle, and Harris Interactive Inc., which noted that the reality of the U.S. housing market is that 74 percent of U.S. homes have lost value in the last year.
“There’s still a significant gap between reality and perception. There’s clearly some denial,” according to a statement from Stan Humphries, Zillow vice president of data and analytics.
According to the survey, perceptions of people in the Northeast about the value of their homes were “most out of line with reality.” In actuality, 71 percent of the homes in the Northeast have lost value in the past year, but only 45 percent of those surveyed there believe that their home values have decreased.
Homeowners in the South and West had the most accurate perceptions of home values, according to the survey.
