Americans are starting to feel better about buying homes — sort of.

• The share of Americans who say it is a good time to buy a home increased 4 percentage points to 15 percent in January compared with December, according to a monthly survey from Fannie Mae.
• Home price gains have been shrinking since last summer and are now rising at the slowest pace in more than six years, according to CoreLogic.
• The share of Americans who say home prices will go up fell 1 percentage point to 30 percent.

More consumers now see the door to homeownership slowly squeaking open, but they still think it’s pretty pricey.

The share of Americans who say it is a good time to buy a home increased 4 percentage points to 15 percent in January compared with December, according to a monthly survey from Fannie Mae. The share is still down sizably from the start of 2018, when housing demand was soaring and home prices were rising at a much faster clip.

Home price gains have been shrinking since last summer and are now rising at the slowest pace in more than six years, according to CoreLogic. Consequently, the share of Americans who say home prices will go up fell 1 percentage point to 30 percent. That share has been declining for four straight months and is down a whopping 22 percentage points from a year ago, according to Fannie Mae.

While consumer confidence in housing is rising this year, it was still a bit unsteady in the fourth quarter of last year.

Seventy-six percent of potential home buyers estimated they could afford fewer than half the homes for sale in their markets, according to a year-end poll from the National Association of Home Builders. That share is... read more at: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/07/americans-are-starting-to-feel-better-about-buying-homessort-of.html