Americans continued to view the current real estate market as favorable for sellers in the latest monthly survey by Fannie Mae, and a larger share of respondents also believed it would be easy to get a mortgage. While more people said they were worried about losing their job, economic optimism also held steady.

Fannie Mae's Home Purchase Sentiment Index rose to 88.3 in June, tying a record high set in February. This index is based on six factors from Fannie Mae's National Housing Survey, including perceptions on whether it is a good time to buy or sell a home, how home prices and mortgage rates will change in the near future, job security, and expected changes to household income.

The net share of respondents who said they think it is a good time to sell a home hit a new high for the second month in a row. Sixty-four percent said they think it is a good time to sell, up 3 percentage points from May and 10 percentage points from June 2016. One in four respondents said they thought it was a bad time to sell, down 4 percentage points from the previous month and 11 percentage points from the previous year.

This perception is likely due to continued price gains in the housing market, with 54 percent expecting that home prices in their market will go up in the next 12 months. This share rose from 48 percent in May and 42 percent in June 2016. Only 8 percent thought prices will drop, unchanged from the previous month and down 1 percentage point from the previous year.

Respondents also expected stronger price growth to occur over the next year. The average expected change in home prices among all respondents was a 3.4 percent increase. The average expected annual growth given by respondents was 2.6 percent in May's survey and 2 percent in the June 2016 survey.

Perceptions on the buyer's market have remained relatively unchanged, with roughly six in 10 respondents considering it a good time to buy in each monthly survey of the past two years. In June, 62 percent considered it a good time to buy – up 2 percentage points from May and 1 percentage point from June 2016. Thirty-two percent said they considered it a bad time to buy a home, down 1 percentage point from the previous month but up 3 percentage points from the previous year.

Fifty-seven percent said they believe mortgage rates will increase in the next 12 months. This share was up only 1 percentage point from May, but 11 percentage points from June 2016. Eight percent said they think rates will drop, an increase from 4 percent in the previous month and 5 percent in the previous year.

June's survey saw a notable uptick in the share of respondents who expected that they could get a mortgage without too much trouble. Fifty-nine percent said they thought it would be easy to get a mortgage, up from 55 percent in May and 54 percent in June 2016 to reach a new survey high. The share of respondents who thought it would be hard for them to get a mortgage fell from 43 percent in the previous year and 42 percent in the previous month to 37 percent.

Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae, says this result comes on the heels of the organization's lender survey, where a significant share of lenders said they expect to ease credit standards in the coming months. In that survey, issued for the second quarter of the year, a net share of 10 to 15 percent of lenders said they expect to ease standards for home loans in the third quarter of the year.

"While consumer optimism on this metric is as high as we've seen in the survey's seven-year history, it's worth nothing that this record is relative to the fairly tight standards in place post-crisis when we started collecting National Housing Survey data," said Duncan. "Nevertheless, in the face of very tight housing supply, easing credit standards may fail to have the desired effect and could have the unintended consequence of fueling further house price increases."

Sixty-seven percent said they would buy a home rather than rent one if they were to move, down 1 percentage point from the previous month but up 4 percentage points from the previous year. Twenty-eight percent said they would rent, an increase of 1 percentage point from May but 3 percentage points lower than in June 2016.

Most respondents thought home rental prices were likely to increase in the next 12 months, with 58 percent holding this opinion. This share was up 1 percentage point from May and 4 percentage points from June 2016. Only 4 percent thought rents will go down, unchanged from the previous month and down 1 percentage point from the previous year.

The average expected change for home rental prices shot up in June, with the typical respondent believing that rents will increase by 4.8 percent over the next year. This was up from 3.8 percent in May and 3.6 percent in June 2016.

Most respondents were not worried about losing their job in the next 12 months, although the share of respondents expressing this concern rose for the second consecutive month. Seventeen percent said they were worried about a job loss, up from 14 percent in May and 16 percent in June 2016. Eighty-three percent said they were not concerned about their job security, down 2 percentage points from the previous month and 1 percentage point from the previous year.

The share of respondents who said their household income is higher than a year ago remained at 28 percent, which was up from 22 percent in June 2016. Eleven percent said their income has fallen significantly, up from 10 percent in the previous month but down from 14 percent in the previous year.

Forty-nine percent said they believe their personal financial situation will improve in the next 12 months, unchanged from May and up 4 percentage points from June 2016. Twelve percent said they believe their financial situation will get worse, up from 11 percent in the previous month and 9 percent in the previous year.

Half of all respondents said they consider the U.S. economy to be on the right track, an increase of 3 percentage points from May and 17 percentage points from June 2016. The share of respondents who believe the economy is on the wrong track fell from 59 percent in the previous year and 40 percent in the previous month to 36 percent.

Fannie Mae's National Housing Survey polls 1,000 Americans via telephone interview each month, asking more than 100 questions to gauge perceptions of the housing market and economy. The survey was first issued in June 2010.