American home buyers as well as sellers are now cautious about the housing market, according to the results of a latest Fannie Mae National Housing Survey.
Fannie Mae, the government-backed lending giant, conducts the survey on a monthly basis.
Last month's survey polled about 1,000 Americans on their opinion about the current housing market. The respondents were asked to opine on "owning and renting a home, home and rental price changes, homeownership distress, the economy, household finances, and overall consumer confidence." All participants answered questions on a telephone.
According to the survey, 67 percent of the participants thought that it was a good time to buy a house as compared to the 43 percent sellers who thought it was the best time to sell.
About 42 percent of the respondents thought that home prices would increase in the coming 12 months, while 8 percent thought that it would decrease.
Also, 54 percent of the people thought that mortgage rates would go up in the coming one year. Half of the respondents said it would be difficult for them to get a mortgage.
Fannie Mae experts said that the results indicated an evident slow-down in the housing market. More buyers are now careful about investing in a home and sellers are also scrup.
"The continued cautious sentiment expressed across the range of consumer indicators this month gives weight to our view that the first phase of the housing recovery is decelerating, and 2014 will be a year of mixed housing outcomes with home prices rising more slowly and home sales falling slightly," Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae, said in a statement.
Duncan, however, added that a sustainable recovery would only be possible if the job growth keeps improving and the wages get better.
"We have always believed that for the housing recovery to be considered robust, we will need strong and sustained full-time job and income growth. Recent data indicating the creation of more than 200,000 jobs over each of the last six months, combined with this month's improvement in the share of consumers reporting significantly higher household income than a year ago, does provide some reason for optimism. If these trends continue, they could lead to some upside in housing in 2015."
The Fannie Mae survey follows a Redfin study conducted in July that showed that home buyers and sellers were not in sync with each other. Another recent study had also highlighted that potential homeowners were unsure about mortgage and ownership costs.
Want to know how the real estate slowdown can help you buy a house? Read on.
