Record Few Still Think It’s a Good Time To Buy a House

Home prices are so high that it’s getting tougher and tougher to justify buying one, a national poll shows.

Mortgage giant Fannie Mae’s monthly survey of U.S. consumers shows just 26% thought it was a good time to buy a house in December—the fewest for any month since Fannie Mae started the survey in 2010—while 76% (almost a record high) thought it was a good time to sell. As the chart below shows, those two figures were just about even a year ago, but a huge gulf has opened between them amid rapidly rising prices, a recent uptick in mortgage rates, and a shortage of homes for sale. 

“Even though demand remains strong, a majority of consumers clearly have reservations about purchasing a home at current prices,” Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae, said in a statement. And that could cool the market down a bit this year, he said.

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