How Confident are Consumers?

As we wrap up the fourth quarter of 2009 and head into the new year, the question running through the minds of everyone in the real estate industry is how confident are consumers these days?

According to the Metropolitan Atlanta Consumer Confidence Survey, consumers confidence hasn’t decreased. However, confidence hasn’t really increased either. Instead consumer confidence has simply moved sideways over the past year.

Presented by Dr. Roger Tutterow, the fourth quarter consumer confidence report explored questions that ranged from the housing market to unemployment. Overall, Atlantans have better confidence than the rest of the county in our economy, but Americans do believe they are not doing as well financially this year as they were this time last year.

Where were the signs of hope? Well, they were actually found in the housing industry. Those surveyed believed that now is a great time to buy a house and purchase large ticket household items such as furniture, washers and dryers, etc. While Atlantans don’t believe their financial situation has improved over the past year, they do recognize that now is the time to invest in their futures.

Tutterow believes the recession ended this past summer and that the economy is timidly rising, but consumer confidence is dependent on the unemployment rate. As the unemployment rate decreases, consumer confidence will increase, creating a better economy. He is hopeful that by the second quarter of 2010 we will begin to see a flat line in the number of jobs cut. At this time could see an increase in hiring as well.

The increase in confidence and in the number of jobs will be tremendous for Atlanta’s housing industry, but don’t expect to see things change overnight, it’s going to take some time to get back to where we were.

Economies that were dominated by manufacturing or construction such as Georgia were hit the hardest by this recession. Therefore, it’s going to take us a bit longer to recover, but Tutterow is confident that in the next three or four years we will see the employment numbers  rise to the level they were prior to the recession.

Overall things are looking up. It appears that we have weathered the storm and we are starting to see the sun peaking through the clouds. Hopefully by this time next year, consumer confidence will have risen considerably and we’ll be able to put this recession behind us where it belongs.