Without consumer confidence, a prospective home buyer may delay or even cancel a purchase, as veteran manufactured home professionals know from first-hand experience.
When publicly traded manufactured home producers and others involved in the manufactured home sector make their periodic statements, they often include a reference to economic conditions, including consumer confidence.
Latest Survey of Consumer Confidence
Per their release, “Consumer sentiment surged in early October, reaching its highest level since the start of 2004.” So said the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers.
“The data indicate a robust outlook for consumer spending that extends the current expansion to at least mid 2018, which would mark the 2nd longest expansion since the mid 1800’s,” Chief Economist Richard Curtin told MHProNews in their release.
Their Survey Research Center stated that, “While the early October surge indicates greater optimism about the future course of the economy, it also reflects an unmistakable sense among consumers that economic prospects are now about as good as could be expected.”
Good Economic Ties Ahead…
“This “as good as it gets” outlook is supported by a moderation in the expected pace of growth in both personal finances and the overall economy, accompanied by a growing sense that, even with this moderation, it would still mean the continuation of good economic times,” Curtin said.
While most Democratic, some in the GOP, and other opponents of the Trump Administration would argue otherwise, such third party research indciates that the president is “winning” on behalf of American business and the public.
For political watchers, in the words of long-time Clinton adviser and Democratic operative, James Carville, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Economic progress may or may not help every Republican, as Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) recently warned. But Bloomberg and others who see the Trump Train as advancing towards re-election in 2020 – at this time – look to be correct.
Curtin noted that “consumers anticipate low unemployment, low inflation, small increases in interest rates, and most importantly, modest income gains in the year ahead.”
The Michigan University consumer sentiment survey summary concluded by saying, “It is this acceptance of lackluster growth rates in personal income and in the overall economy that signifies that consumers have accepted, however reluctantly, limits on the pace of improving prospects for living standards.”
There are concerns that the “DC Swamp” disruptive, reform agenda of the Trump Administration could be derailed.
But it is precisely because of those looming concerns why:
- the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB),
and others involved in the MH space are prodding policy makers with their various requests to keep the economic expansion and regulatory reforms going. ## (News, analysis.)
Note: Related article about Steve Forbes on Tax Reform, linked here.
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