Survey Sees Home Prices Finally Turning; Builders Weigh in on Tariffs; Refi Apps Did Heavy Lifting

Americans may be growing a bit pessimistic about housing, that came through loud and clear in the results of Fannie Mae's February edition of the National Housing Survey (NHS). Fannie Mae said its Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI), which is a distillation of some of the answers to the survey, dropped 3.7 points in February, reversing to the penny the increase posted in January. The HPSI returned to its December level of 85.8, down 2.5 points compared with the February survey results in 2017. Five of the six components that go into constructing the HPSI were lower, including the net percentage of both those saying it was a good time to buy and those who think it is a good time to sell. The good time to buy question elicited net positive responses from 22 percent of respondents, down 5 percentage