By: Jennifer Davies
Read this article on Sign On San Diego

If the current spate of bad housing news is getting you down, you’re not alone. A new survey of real estate agents and brokers found confidence in the housing market is at its lowest level since June 2009.

Point2 Technologies, which provides marketing software for the real estate industry, surveyed 1,055 brokers and agents nationwide and asked them to rate their confidence in market on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being bad and 10 being good). In August, the Confidence Index averaged 4.87, a drop of 7.23 percent from July and a 17 percent drop from a year ago.

Point2 Technologies said the negative score means brokers and agents are predicting further “downside in home sales.”

In describing the current real estate market, agents and brokers from Virginia to California described it as “slow” or “very slow.”

Gary Kent, a local real estate agent, agreed that the pace of sales are much less brisk in what he calls the “post homebuyer tax credit hangover.”

“With homes that I’m selling, there’s a lot less interest,” he said. “Homes that should be selling aren’t so we have to reduce the price.”

Other concerns voiced in the national survey were high unemployment numbers, difficulty in qualifying for loans as well as issues with inventory and lack incentive to buy.

“Too much inventory and not enough buyers,” is how one respondent from Arizona put it.

Still, Point2 said some real estate professionals in such states as California, Hawaii, Michigan, North Carolina and Utah said the housing market was holding up well despite foreclosures.

But Kent said the local real estate agents he talks to feel a little whipsawed by the slow pace of sales in San Diego.

“We saw the pick up last year, and it was like ‘OK, we’re out of this,’” he said. “Now we are down and again and everyone is crying in their coffee a bit.”