Faith in home values persists

david.streitfeld@latimes.com

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Homes and the economy

Slightly more than half of those polled believe the housing slowdown will hurt the economy, and 60% believe a recession is "somewhat likely" to "very likely."

Q: Six months from now, do you expect housing values to increase in your neighborhood, decrease or stay the same?

Increase: 32%

Decrease: 16%

Remain about the same: 51%

Don't know: 1%

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Q: As you may know, there has been a slowdown in new home sales nationwide, to the lowest level in seven years. Do you think the decline in new home sales will have a positive or a negative effect on the nation's economy, or won't it affect the nation's economy one way or the other?

No effect: 27%

Positive effect: 11%

Negative effect: 54%

Don't know: 8%

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Q: Who or what do you think is mostly to blame for borrowers with sub-prime mortgages who are going into default? Is it: The sub-prime mortgage borrowers who should not have taken out loans they would have trouble paying if the interest rate went up, or the sub-prime mortgage lenders who approved mortgages to people who could not afford higher interest rates, or government regulators who should have been monitoring the sub-prime mortgage market more closely?

Borrower : 28%

Lender: 39%

Government regulators: 20%

All*:9%

Don't know: 4%

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Q: In your opinion, how likely is it that the nation could face an economic recession sometime in the next year? Would you say it is very likely, somewhat likely, not very likely or not likely at all?

Very likely: 16%

Somewhat likely: 44%

Not very likely: 26%

Not likely at all: 11%

Don't know: 3%

Times Poll results are also available at www.latimes.com/timespoll.

*Response was volunteered.

How the poll was conducted: The Los Angeles Times / Bloomberg Poll contacted 1,373 adults nationwide by telephone April 5-9. Telephone numbers were chosen randomly from a list of all exchanges in the nation, and random digit dialing techniques allowed listed and unlisted numbers to be contacted. Multiple attempts were made to contact each number. Areas with higher concentration of African American households were disproportionately contacted in a separate random national sample to allow a more accurate analysis of that subgroup. Adults in both samples were weighted slightly to conform with their respective census proportions by sex, ethnicity, age, education, and national region. The margin of sampling error for all adults is plus or minus 3 percentage points. For certain subgroups, the error margin may be somewhat higher. Poll results may also be affected by factors such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented.

Source: Times/Bloomberg Poll