Housing sentiment falls for the seventh consecutive month

According to Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae, more pessimistic respondents have cited high home prices, unfavorable economic and mortgage rate conditions as the reasons behind bad selling conditions. This also points to a bleak outlook on mortgage, with 64% of respondents expecting rates to continue going up.

“As long as supply is limited and affordability pressures continue to constrain potential homebuyers via elevated home prices and mortgage rates, we expect home sales will remain sluggish,” Duncan said.

Fortunately, the sentiments on job loss and household income are much more positive this time around. More than half of the respondents claimed they aren’t as concerned about losing their job, while another 15% of them said household income had become higher compared to 12 months ago.

As for house prices, the net share of Americans who believe prices will fall in the next 12 months has surpassed those who believe they will go up — a rare finding that has only happened twice before.