Home Buying More Attractive Than Stocks

Most Americans are averse to investing, but a majority think it's a good time to purchase a home.

Normally, a half-price sale appeals to consumers with its promise of a bargain. They don't seem to feel that way about the stock market, though. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen by about half since its late-2007 peak, polling for the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds the massive price reduction in stocks hasn't persuaded a majority of people that this is a good time to buy.

While about four in 10 said it's now a very good time (7 percent) or a good time (32 percent) to invest in the stock market, more than half said it's a bad (38 percent) or very bad time (16 percent) to do so. The rest declined to answer. For comparison's sake, the tally in September 2007 -- i.e., when the market was poised near the peak from which it subsequently swan-dived -- was 40 percent very good/good vs. 42 percent bad/very bad.

The poll, fielded last week, does offer a ray of hope for financial-services marketers, though. It found upper-income respondents more likely than others to say this is a good or very good time to buy stocks, with 54 percent of those in the $100,000-plus bracket voicing that opinion. Just 23 percent of those in the under-$30,000 cohort felt the same way. Similarly, 51 percent of the poll's college graduates (vs. 31 percent of those with a high school diploma or less) said it's now a very good or good time to invest.

If a majority of people are wary of the stock market, they're surprisingly (not to say alarmingly) sanguine about the housing market. Three-quarters of those polled said it's a very good (18 percent) or good time (57 percent) to buy a home. Seventeen percent said it's a bad time and 4 percent a very bad time to do this. Majorities of respondents in all income cohorts said they think it's a good or very good time to buy a home, notwithstanding the continuing slide in house prices. Apart from the fact that you can happily live in a house, even if its market value is falling, we can surmise that respondents' different views of the real estate and equities markets have something to do with the fact that a decline in the former is not specifically quantified on the news day after day.
-By Mark Dolliver
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