Despite the current doom and gloom shrouding the housing
market, results released Monday of a survey conducted by the American Savings
Education Council and other organizations reveals that most American homeowners
still expect that they'll have paid off their home mortgages completely by the
time they retire.
Over three-quarters of U.S. homeowners, in fact, seem
unfazed enough by the rapid rise of foreclosures and the equally rapid
diminishing of housing prices to maintain full confidence in their ability to
own their homes free and clear before their working years are through.
The survey, which studied the savings patterns of over 1,000
American adults, found that almost three-quarters of them also believed that
they possessed enough money in savings to cover a sudden emergency while
slightly over one-third of respondents believed that they may not have enough
money saved to enjoy a reasonable quality of life post-retirement.
Is this merely a signal of blind optimism or is it an
accurate sign that the current housing situation isn't nearly as bad as most
media and government prognosticators are making it out to be? The answer to
that question may be purely subjective, but one fact is certain - high-income
households seem better poised to weather this storm than low-income households.
One possible way for less adequately prepared households to
buoy their ability to keep their homes and pay down their mortgages with all due
haste is to find ways to monetize their property, possibly by converting a
portion of it into a rental, thereby supplementing their income and lowering
the portion of their monthly mortgage payment that must come out of their own
pockets.