The recent upturn in house price from April to July (3.6%) is the sharpest change in direction professor Robert Shiller has ever seen.Â
It could signal a v-shaped recovery in house prices. Or it could be the “mother of all head fakes,” as investor Whitney Tilson has described it.
Robert Shiller’s recent survey of attitudes about house prices suggests it’s probably the latter. The survey also suggests that Americans are still delusional about the long-term trajectory for house prices.
In the survey, Shiller and his partner Karl Case ask Americans what they think home prices will do over the short and long term.Â
The expectation for long-term price changes hasn’t changed much since before the bubble (it’s now down to 11% a year appreciation). This outlook is more reasonable now than it was at the peak of the bubble, but it’s still extraordinarily optimistic. This suggests that Americans still regard the last couple of years as a freak anomaly–even though house prices are just now hitting the range of “normal” on key price ratios like price-to-rent and price-to-income (see charts here).
