February marks the third consecutive month in which the HMI has held at 57, and the second consecutive month in which there has been no change posted in the index component that gauges current single-family home sales.

?EUR??,,????'??After several record-breaking years for home sales, builders are anticipating a return of the market to a healthy and steady pace,?EUR??,,????'?? said David Pressly, NAHB president.

Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for almost 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.

?EUR??,,????'??This is definitely a good sign that the housing market is stabilizing,?EUR??,,????'?? agreed NAHB Chief Economist David Seiders. ?EUR??,,????'??The HMI fell significantly during the second half of 2005 as eroding affordability conditions affected home sales and builder sentiment, and the recent stabilization is consistent with the orderly cooling-down process that NAHB has been forecasting.?EUR??,,????'??

For February?EUR??,,????'???s HMI, the component gauging builders?EUR??,,????'??? perceptions of current market conditions was unchanged from January, at a still-favorable 62. Meanwhile, the component gauging sales expectations for the next six months and the component gauging traffic of prospective buyers each declined one point, to 65 and 40, respectively.