Concerns about the US housing recovery are mounting following a fall in activity since a $8,000 tax credit for new buyers expired on April 30th last.

Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes edged down for a third consecutive month in August, according to the latest National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), released on Monday. The HMI declined one point to 13, its lowest level since March of 2009.

“Builders are expressing the same concerns that they are hearing from consumers right now, particularly the sense that the overall economy and job market aren’t gaining any traction,” said NAHB Chairman Bob Jones. “Meanwhile, many continue to report that problems with inaccurate appraisals, competition from the large number of distressed properties on the market, and tight consumer lending conditions are causing them to lose potential sales.”

“Today’s report reflects single-family home builders’ concerns about current and future economic conditions and about the increasing hesitancy they are seeing among potential home buyers,” added NAHB chief economist David Crowe. “It also reflects the frustration that builders are feeling regarding the effects that foreclosed property sales are having on the new-homes market, with 87% of respondents reporting that their market has been negatively impacted by foreclosures.” Even so, he noted, NAHB continues to project that modest job gains, historically low mortgage rates and pent-up demand will ensure a better housing market in the second half of 2010 than in the first half.

Unemployment at almost 10% is a drag on the market, despite mortgage rates being at record lows and today, Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary, and Shaun Donovan, housing secretary, will meet investors, bankers and public policy experts to discuss housing finance. Investors are avoiding private-sector mortgages, with most new home loans now financed through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the agencies taken over by the government in 2008.

US sales of new single-family houses in June 2010 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 330,000, according to estimates released jointly in July by the US Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Although June sales rose, they were the second-lowest since 1963.

A report from Deutsche Bank says in the average congressional district, serious mortgage delinquency rates  -- defined as borrowers more than three months behind on their payments  -- are 9.4%, compared to 3.3% at the time of the election in 2008.

A housing recovery may be further off than many thought, according to a new NAHB housing survey. Patrick Newport, of IHS Global Insight, and David Goldberg, of UBS, share their insights: