Despite fears in the marketplace about a U.S. housing bubble, the majority of homeowners (nearly 60%) expect the value of their homes to increase by at least 5% annually during the next several years, according a survey released today by RBC Capital Markets.

In fact, a quarter of those respondents (24%) even said they expect annualized gains of 10% or more over the next few years. Only a scant 3% of respondents expect their home values to decline over the next few years.

In addition, 85% of homeowners responding experienced real estate gains over the last three years and over 70% experienced gains in excess of 10% during this timeframe. However, only 10% of the respondents believed that rising home values had affected their spending habits.

Furthermore, over half of those surveyed firmly disagreed with the notion that real estate gains impacted their spending even though half of all respondents (51%) either sold their home or borrowed against their home equity in some fashion.

Those that disagreed most with the idea that real estate gains had impacted their spending were those in higher income brackets (defined as those making over US$100,000) and those that had already experienced the biggest real estate gains. Ultimately, these two groups were also the most aggressive in extracting equity (approximately 65%).

“Not only are most people expecting big real estate gains to continue, the vast majority of people don’t believe these gains have impacted their spending. These opinions run contrary to most data in the marketplace regarding the real estate wealth effect,” said Scot Ciccarelli, managing director, Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets, in a release.

“We believe these findings raise a major question. In our minds, the question is whether people have spent more freely than they otherwise would have because of their real estate gains and don’t even recognize it. If that’s the case, a simple slowing of real estate gains, not just a fall in housing prices, could have a significant adverse impact on spending patterns.”

The RBC Capital Markets survey was conducted during the week of September 19, and included 1,001 online respondents. Stamford, Connecticut-based InsightExpress assisted RBC Capital Markets in the survey. The margin of error for the survey was plus or minus 3%.