U.S. homebuilder sentiment fell to a new record low in January as fears about the uncertainties in the economy making buyers hesitate in buying and hurting builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes down further in January, the National Association of Home Builders said on Wednesday.

In its preliminary NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), the reading for January was 8, down from 9 in December. That is the lowest level since the index was started in January 1985.

Readings below 50 indicate more builders view market conditions as poor than favorable. Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for more than 20 years, HMI measures builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.” The survey also asks builders to rate 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 sales conditions as good than poor. 

All of the HMI’s component indexes remained at or near historic lows in January. The index estimating current sales conditions recorded the greatest change, with a two-point decline to 6. Meanwhile, the indexes measuring sales expectations for the next six months and traffic of prospective buyers each increased by a single point, to 17 and 8, respectively.

The U.S. housing market is suffering the worst downturn since the Great Depression as a huge supply of unsold homes, tighter lending standards and record foreclosures pushed down home prices.

"Clearly, conditions in the nation's housing market aren't getting any better, and they aren't going to get any better until the federal government takes substantial action to encourage qualified buyers to get back in the market," NAHB Chairman Sandy Dunn said in a statement.

Homebuilders have limited new constructions as they have been working through inventories of unsold homes by slashing prices at the expense of profits to pay off debt and keep afloat."Builder views continue to track with historically low consumer confidence measures," NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe said in a statement.