?EUR??,,????'??Despite the Federal Reserve?EUR??,,????'???s concerted efforts to lower short-term interest rates, free up credit markets and shore up the national economy, the housing market has shown no evidence of improvement thus far. In fact, conditions have continued to deteriorate in recent times,?EUR??,,????'?? said NAHB Chief Economist David Seiders.

Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for more than 20 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo HMI gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as ?EUR??,,????'??good,?EUR??,,????'?? ?EUR??,,????'??fair?EUR??,,????'?? or ?EUR??,,????'??poor.?EUR??,,????'?? The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as either ?EUR??,,????'??high to very high,?EUR??,,????'?? ?EUR??,,????'??average?EUR??,,????'?? or ?EUR??,,????'??low to very low.?EUR??,,????'?? Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.

The HMI?EUR??,,????'???s component index gauging current sales conditions declined one point to 17 in May ?EUR??,,????'??+ its lowest level since the series began in January 1985. Meanwhile, the component gauging sales expectations for the next six months declined three points to 27, and the component gauging traffic of prospective buyers declined two points to 17.