Zillion is reporting potentially 5 million ‘Sidelined Sellers’ are likely to put their homes on market with new signs of a market turnaround.

In a recent survey, Zillow.com revealed while the majority of markets continue to decline, homeowners across the country had mixed opinions of the state of their own homes’ values.

The Q1 Homeowner Confidence Survey revealed nationally, homeowners were overconfident, with 50% believing their home’s value declined in the past year. In reality, 65 percent of U.S. homes declined in value.

The survey also showed 7 percent of homeowners (5.3 million homes)(3), said they would be “very likely” to put their home on the market in the next 12 months if they see signs of the housing market improving.

By comparison, 5.2 million existing homes were sold during 2009.

An additional 8 percent said they would be “likely” to put their home on the market.

Another 14 percent said they would be “somewhat likely.” This represents “sidelined sellers” which could significantly delay timing of a market recovery .

In contrast, the most pessimistic homeowners reside in the West even though the home values in many California and Colorado cities have stabilized over the past year Zillow’s report revealed.

“It is clear that there is a lag between market realities and public perceptions of home values. For quite a while after the market peak, Western homeowners continued to believe their own homes’ values were doing better than they were in reality,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries. “Conversely, after years of press coverage about declining home values, homeowner perceptions are now in line with market conditions from early last year, although the Western market has improved since then.”

Zillow is an online real estate marketplace where homeowners can value their property. You can access your properties estimated value at http://www.zillow.com/

John Adams, Editor in Chief, HowToMarketYourBusinessNow.com