By Jann Swanson | Mortgage News Daily
After a couple of high flying months and after setting several survey records in February, Fannie Mae’s Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) ran out of steam in March. The index decreased 3.8 percentage points to 84.5, and five of the six components that comprise it also fell, some rather dramatically.
The net share of respondents to the National Housing Survey from which the HPSI is derived who said it was a good time to buy a house fell 10 percentage points while the net of those saying it was a good time to sell rose 9 points. The latter was the sole advance for the month and set its second new survey high in as many months. High home prices were cited as the most important reason for both the bad time to buy sentiments, mentioned by 39 percent of those respondents, and by 24 percent of those who say it is a good time to sell.
