But expected increases of 7 percent a year still implied another doubling of home prices by 2015. And about a quarter of our respondents in 2005 anticipated increases of at least 15 percent a year for the next decade. Something was very wrong with this picture, but few noticed it.

As it turned out, of course, those expected increases didn’t happen. Instead, home prices tumbled 34 percent nationally from the peak in the first quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2011 — or 40 percent in real terms — and they still appear to be falling. The brief “recovery” in home prices of 2009 and 2010 was most likely spurred by federal housing stimulus measures like the home buyer tax credit. After that stimulus ended, prices resumed their downward trend.

During the bubble, the sense of rising wealth and high expectations gave people a good reason to spend and a greater willingness to plunge into investment, too. Government policy makers breathed in the same optimism, which no doubt encouraged them to be lax on regulatory restraint.

The mood is far different now. Our latest survey, covering April and May of this year, included 296 home buyers, and their median expectation for annual home price appreciation over the next decade was down sharply, to just 3 percent. And, in comparison with the 2005 results, few people had extravagant expectations.

The 3 percent figure is well below prevailing rates for 30-year mortgages, now hovering between 4.5 and 5 percent. Amid such low expectations, buying a home with a mortgage certainly isn’t being viewed as a way to get rich.

Even for people who have other reasons to buy a house, there may be little urgency to do so. Our 2011 survey found that the median expectation for home price appreciation next year is just 1 percent. So it won’t be surprising if new home sales remain abysmally low and few jobs are created in the hard-hit construction industry. And it shouldn’t be a shock if the personal savings rate stays at around 5 percent, as it has recently, up from around 1 percent in 2005. This would mean that consumer spending will not drive a strong recovery.