Every three months, we get an eye-opening look into the psyche of the American Homeowner as part of Zillow’s quarterly Homeowner Confidence Survey.  It’s been fascinating over the past year to chart the way homeowners perceive the value of their homes, and the homes around them, in a fast-changing (and unfortunately, still-declining) housing market.

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The news this quarter — homeowner confidence in the value of their own homes is at an all-time low.  Most homeowners (60 percent) believe their home’s value has declined over the past year. In reality, 80 percent of U.S homes lost value in the past 12 months.  This is the closest homeowner perception has come to reality since we first started fielding this survey in early 2008.

But the real news here comes in homeowner predictions for the future.  When asked what they think will happen to their home’s value in the coming six months, three out of four homeowners (74 percent) believe their home will not decline in value in the near future — effectively calling a bottom to their own home’s housing slide. Specifically:

• 27 percent think their home’s value will increase in the coming six months
• 47 percent think their home’s value will stay the same
• 26 percent think their home’s value will decrease

With responses broken out by region, you can see that the most optimistic group is those in the Northeast, with 77 percent believing their home’s value won’t decline any further, and a full third (32 percent) thinking their home’s value will increase.

What’s your take on these homeowner predictions?  Could this optimism about the future have an impact on selling or buying activity in the coming months?  (we have some thoughts on this, coming in a future post.)