A smaller share of potential buyers expect to buy a home in the next year, according to recent research by the National Association of Home Builders. In addition, buyers were also increasingly likely to report frustrations with affordability, housing availability, and other issues.

In its debut Housing Trends Report, the NAHB found that 17 percent of a poll of 11,674 people said they expect to buy a home in the next 12 months. This share, for the first quarter of 2018, was down from 24 percent in a poll conducted in the last quarter of 2017.

Forty-five percent of these prospective buyers would be purchasing their first home. This was down from 60 percent at the end of 2017.

Younger buyers were more optimistic, with 19 percent of millennials saying they expect to buy a home within the next year. This was followed by 18 percent of potential Generation X buyers, 16 percent of baby boomers, and 13 percent of seniors.

Nearly three out four millennials—72 percent—said they would be buying their first home, along with 43 percent of Generation X respondents. Only 19 percent of baby boomers were looking to buy their first home, along with just 3 percent of seniors.

Forty-five percent said they would look to purchase an existing home, and 41 percent said they would buy either an existing or new home. Thirteen percent said they were limiting their search to newly constructed homes.

The report also identified a number of difficulties buyers said they were facing. Seventy-three percent said they expect the difficulty of finding the right home to be about the same or harder in the coming months, up from 68 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017. In each of the generations included in the report, fewer than 20 percent of respondents said they believe their home search will get easier.

Nearly two-thirds of prospective buyers—64 percent—said they were seeing fewer homes with their desired features and price range, or that this inventory was staying about the same, in the past three months. This was up from 58 percent in the previous quarter. Twenty-four percent said they were seeing more desirable homes, down 10 percentage points from the final quarter of 2017.

Less than one-third of each generation said the inventory of desirable homes had increased in the previous three months. Seniors were the most likely to say that there were more homes that appealed to them, with 31 percent saying this was the case.

Choices were limited for most respondents. Eighty-three percent said they could afford less than half the homes for sale in their market, up from 79 percent in the previous quarter. Millennials were the most likely group to report this affordability trouble, with 86 percent reporting that more than half the homes in their market were out of their reach.

This generation was most likely to say that they were already actively searching for a home, with 49 percent saying this was the case. But only 42 percent of overall respondents said they had already started their home search, down from 67 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Just over half—51 percent—of all respondents said they had been searching for three months or more. This was down from 62 percent in the previous quarter. The share of respondents indicating that they had been looking for a home for less than three months increased from 38 percent to 49 percent.

Generation X buyers were the most likely to say that they had been searching fruitlessly for at least three months. Fifty-seven percent said this was the case, compared to 51 percent of baby boomers and 48 percent of millennials.

Fifty-three percent of those who hadn't bought a home after three months of searching said they hadn't been able to find a suitable residence in their price range. This was up from 42 percent in the previous quarter.

Forty-three percent said they hadn't been able to find a home in their preferred neighborhood, up 11 percentage points from the previous quarter. Buyers were slightly more likely to have trouble finding a home with features they wanted, with the share indicating this issue rising from 36 percent to 39 percent. Bidding wars were less common, with only 16 percent saying they'd been outbid on a property – down 11 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2017.

Sixty percent said they would keep up the search if they are still unable to find the right home in the coming months. Forty-three percent said they would expand their search area, and 24 percent said they would settle for an older or smaller home than they preferred.

Eleven percent said they would be willing to buy a more expensive home than originally intended if they are unable to buy a home in the near future. Thirteen percent said they would suspend their home search for at least a year.