o US NAHB Housing Market Index - The end of the homebuyer tax credit sent builders into a funk in June, when the NAHB housing market index fell 5 points to 17. The end of the credit has now torpedoed building permits, mortgage purchase applications and the NAHB survey; next up in the cross hairs are housing starts, new home sales, and eventually existing home sales. The decline in the June homebuilder survey is probably less surprising than the April and May jump up in this index--one might have thought homebuilders understood the temporary nature of the lift to sales in those months and were looking past that. In any event, all three components -- present sales, expected sales over the next six months, and traffic of prospective buyers -- fell, as did all four major regional indexes.

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