Consumers think overall inflation rates should keep declining in the coming year, but home prices could be an exception to the cooling trend.
Just days before June inflation data is released on Wednesday, a new survey of consumer expectations from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that people believe the air is coming out of inflation.
For the third straight month, people said they thought the inflation rate 12 months out would be lower.
The median inflation rate a year from now would be 3.8%, consumers said in Monday’s release, down from the 4% they said in May. That’s three percentage points lower than the record high last June, when people anticipated the inflation rate a year ahead would be 6.8%.
On the flip side, expectations for an increase in home prices increased for the fifth straight month. The expected growth in home prices climbed to 2.9% in June, from 2.6% in May.
People in the South and West and those with college degrees were the ones driving that expectation, researchers said. The anticipated 2.9% home-price growth rate is the highest in nearly a year, they noted.
Also read: Construction spending inches up, showing signs of a recovery in housing
The latest release on consumer expectations fits with the overall cooling trend seen in Labor Department inflation data. In May, the year-over-year inflation rate dropped to 4%, from 4.9% in April. The 4% annualized inflation rate is the lowest since March 2021.
The consumer-price index reflects the prices people are paying, but the New York Fed’s gauge of consumer expectation offers a peek into the mindset of consumers and the price environment they anticipate.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release June’s inflation numbers on Wednesday morning.
Looking further into the future, consumers — at least for now — don’t see inflation rates dropping much lower than the 3.8% mark. The median expected inflation rate will be 3% in three years and in five years, they said in the survey.
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