RIGA, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The number of people in Latvia expecting housing to become increasingly costly in following months has been on the rise for several months already, the latest SEB Housing Price Indicator showed Wednesday.
These expectations have been fueled by people's growing income and more affordable mortgage loans, according to SEB Bank analysts.
The SEB Housing Price Indicator has been drawn up based on a survey conducted by Latvia's SKDS pollster in March 2018.
According to the survey, 54.6 percent of respondents believe that housing will only increase in price over the next 12 months, which is the highest percentage recorded since the SEB Housing Price Indicator was created in 2009.
The percentage of Latvians expecting housing prices to decline in the next 12 months has been dropping and now stands at 6 percent. As many as 21.8 percent of respondents in the poll said that housing prices are unlikely to change in the nearest future, and 17.7 percent of the surveyed people said they did not know.
SEB Housing Price Indicators from previous years show that Latvians' outlook on the housing market hit the lowest point in 2009, during the economic crisis, when only 6.1 percent of respondents expected housing prices to rise and nearly 62 percent felt they would fall, which they did.
"Analysis of the respondents' answers across various socioeconomic groups shows that the highest proportion of people expecting property prices to rise is among respondents aged between 25 and 34 years, people working in managerial positions, housewives, as well as individual entrepreneurs," said SEB economist Dainis Gaspuitis.
Also, people with higher education and high or medium-high income tend to be the most optimistic.
"The lowest percentage of people forecasting housing prices to drop is among 45 to 54 years old people, pensioners, workers and farmers. But even in those groups the number of those who expect housing prices to rise is significantly higher than those who expect them to decline," said Gaspuitis.
