More than 61 percent of respondents who purchased their home four years ago say they are as well or better off than they were four years ago, answering the quadrennial question asked every election season

Of the 94 percent of homeowners who still own the same home they bought four years ago, 10 percent said their home has increased in value, and 17 percent said their home value has stayed the same, according to an online survey of homeowners.

Sixty percent of homebuyers who were polled said they viewed their purchase as a long-term investment, and planned to live in the home for seven years or more. Twenty-five percent said they considered their home purchase as a medium-term investment and planned to sell the home within two to seven years.

A total of 915 homebuyers responded and participated in thsurvey. The states with the most respondents include California (nearly 30 percent), Massachusetts (10 percent), Texas (10 percent), Arizona (10 percent), and Florida (eight percent).

While most homeowners would rather not return to the disastrous housing bust of 2008, they aren’t very cheery about the future. According to Zillow’s second quarter Homeowner Confidence Survey, they are more pessimistic about the short-term future of home values in their local market than they have been in the past three quarters. One-third (33 percent) believe home values in their local housing market have not yet reached a bottom, while 38 percent believe they have already reached a bottom.

More than one-quarter (28 percent) of U.S. homeowners said home values in their local real estate market will decrease in the next six months, up from 20 percent in the first quarter. Additionally, less than one-third (30 percent) believe home values in their local market will increase, down from 42 percent in the first quarter.

Despite the increasing pessimism, a large number of homeowners anxiously await the opportunity to sell. Five percent of U.S. homeowners say they are very likely to put their home on the market in the next six months if they see signs of a real estate market turnaround. This translates into 3.8 million homes with the potential to come into the market. By comparison, 5.2 million existing homes were sold in all of 2009.

Looking backward, homeowners also became slightly more pessimistic about the performance of their own homes’ values in the past year. Less than a quarter (24 percent) of homeowners said their home had increased in value in the past year, compared to 27 percent in the first quarter. In reality, 34 percent of homes increased in value in the second quarter, according to the Zillow Q2 Real Estate Market Reports.

“As homeowners have been so inundated recently with news of declining home sales post-tax credit, it’s no surprise that they would become more pessimistic about the future of home values,” said Dr. Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow.com.