Poll: Half of Adults Plan to Buy a Home

A new Gallup Poll shows that about half of all non-homeowner adults plan to purchase a home within the next five years. Ten percent of that group say they’ll buy in the next year, and an additional 20 percent say they plan to buy in the next decade.

The poll, conducted March 9 through 29, marks an uptick in all categories over the year. In April 2016, 9 percent said they’d buy in the next year, 32 percent in the next five, and 18 percent in the next 10. A whopping 38 percent said they wouldn’t buy a home in the foreseeable future.

“Homeownership remains an aspiration for the vast majority of Americans who do not currently own a home—about seven in 10 non-homeowners expect to buy a home within the next 10 years,” Gallup reported. “This indicates that the market for real estate sales should remain strong.”

Gallup’s poll also looked at homeownership plans based on age, finding that the majority of non-homeowners 55 or older aren’t planning to buy anytime soon. The nation’s younger generations are certainly on board though; Nearly 60 percent of non-homeowners between 35 and 54 plan to purchase a home in the next five years, and more than half of those between 18 and 34 do, too. Only 14 percent of Americans between 18 and 34 don’t plan to buy a home in the next 10 years.

On a geographic level, the poll showed higher purchasing intentions among those in the South and lower chances of homeownership in the East.

Gallup recently conducted another poll on housing prices, which showed 61 percent of Americans expect local home prices to jump over the coming year—the highest the poll has seen since 2005 when 70 percent of those surveyed said the same.

The uptick in price doesn’t seem to be spurring homeowners to sell though. Gallup found that 64 percent of homeowning adults don’t plan to sell their property anytime in the near future. One in five expects to sell in the next five years, and 13 percent expect to in the next decade. Again, younger people were more likely to sell than those 55 and older.

Because a higher percentage of non-homeowners plan to buy in the next five years than homeowners plan to sell, this could cause a housing shortage, according to Gallup. This could encourage growth in the construction sector and drive housing prices up even further.

“Some of the shortfall in housing supply can be made up by new construction, which might indicate a construction boom is on the horizon, if not already underway,” Gallup reported. “But if real estate demand continues to outpace real estate supply, home prices will continue to rise and could rise beyond what most Americans can afford. To the extent that happens, many would-be homeowners may not be able to achieve their goal of owning a home.