?EUR??,,????'??Two big factors are coloring builders?EUR??,,????'??? perceptions of the market right now ?EUR??,,????'??? rising sales cancellations and substantial growth in inventories of both new and existing homes,?EUR??,,????'?? said NAHB Chief Economist David Seiders. ?EUR??,,????'??These factors are largely the result of an increasing number of potential buyers adopting a ?EUR??,,????'??wait-and-see?EUR??,,????'??? attitude because of uncertainty about where the housing market is headed, and record-high energy costs also appear to be weighing on housing demand.?EUR??,,????'??

Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for 21 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo HMI gauges builder perceptions of current single-family homes 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.

All three component indexes declined in August. The component gauging current single-family home sales fell seven points to 36, while the component gauging sales expectations in the next six months and the component gauging traffic of prospective buyers both fell six points, to 40 and 21, respectively.