Hat tip to the Blur for sending along this cnbc.com article about a Trulia report:

More than a quarter of Americans currently renting houses and apartments have no intention to ever buy a home, according to a survey published on Wednesday. 

The survey, by real estate search site Trulia.com, found 27 percent of renters do not plan to ever buy a home. Although 72 percent still expect to buy eventually, that proportion is down from 77 percent six months ago.

Of those who do hope to become homeowners, two-thirds say they will wait two years or more.

This reluctance to buy could drag out the real estate market’s slump longer than many have predicted, Trulia said.

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When you link to the report, you’ll see in the fine print at the bottom:

This July 2010 survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive via its QuickQuery(SM) online omnibus service on behalf of Trulia between July 22-26, 2010 among 2,055 U.S. adults aged 18 years and older. The sample included 1,345 homeowners and 663 renters. Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

EDIT:  They found 179 out of 663 renters to say that they’ll never buy a home in an on-line survey.  But cnbc.com leads with the line, “More than a quarter of Americans currently renting houses and apartments have no intention to ever buy a home”. 

I guess that is polling, but the media sure tries to sensationalize every datapoint.

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Jim the Realtor
Jim is a long-time local realtor who comments daily here on his blog, bubbleinfo.com which began in September, 2005. Stick around!

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