A recent NAHB poll of 17,601 American adults in the third quarter of 2019 revealed that only a small 12% are planning a home purchase in the next 12 months. The National Association of Home Builders NAHB prepares this report every quarter in a year.
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From those planning to buy a home, only 44% are actively engaged in the process of finding a home to buy. Compared with the third quarter of 2018, this rate came down 3 points.
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This means that the lowest mortgage rates in the past three years did not lead more prospective home buyers to become actively engaged in the process of looking for a home.
Across generations, over 40% of each group moved beyond just planning and were already searching in the third quarter of 2019.
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Geographically, prospective buyers in the Northeast are the most likely to be actively looking for a home (50%), followed by those in the West (45%), South (43%), and Midwest (40%).
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Buyers who were actively engaged in the search for a home were also asked about the number of months they have spent looking.
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In the third quarter of 2019, 58% had been at it for at least three months, slightly higher than the 55% reporting that length of time a year earlier. Meanwhile, the share of these active buyers searching for less than three months dropped from 45% to 42% during this period.
Source: Eye on Housing – Fewer than Half of Prospective Buyers Are Actively Looking for a Home