Bad weather appears to be taking a toll on otherwise solid builder confidence.   The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) said its Housing Market Index (HMI), a measure of builder attitudes toward new home construction, was down 2 points to 55 in February after falling 1 point the month before.

NAHB Chairman Tom Woods blamed the dip in part the serial snowstorms that have hit much of the nation for the last month. He said, "Overall, builder sentiment remains fairly solid, with this slight downturn largely attributable to the unusually high snow levels across much of the nation.

The HMI, sponsored in partnership with Wells Fargo Bank, is derived from a monthly survey of NAHB's new home builder members.  They are asked their perceptions of the current single family home market and their expectations for that market over the next six months as "good," "fair," or "poor," and asked to rate current traffic of prospective buyers as "high to very high," "average" or "low to very low." Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.

The component measuring current sales conditions eased down 1 point from 62, the level it had maintained over the previous three months. While sales expectations over the next six months held steady at 60.  The impact of the weather was most evident in the component measuring current buyer traffic which fell 5 points to 39.

Regional scores are presented as three-month moving averages.  That average was down 1 point in the Northeast to 46 and 2 points in both the Midwest and the South to HMI scores of 54 and 57 respectively.  The West was 2 points higher at 68.

NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe said, "For the past eight months, confidence levels have held in the mid- to upper 50s range, which is consistent with a modest, ongoing recovery.  "Solid job growth, affordable home prices and historically low mortgage rates should help unleash growing pent-up demand and keep the housing market moving forward in the year ahead."