The number of Americans who believe it’s a good time to purchase a home fell to 68 percent (down 2 percentage points since June) according to the third Quarter 2010 Fannie Mae National Housing Survey.

Polled between July 2010 and September 2010, the results show that Americans are less certain the housing market has bottomed.

“Consumer attitudes toward buying a home are more negative since last quarter,” said Doug Duncan, Vice President and Chief Economist, Fannie Mae. “Our survey shows that Americans’ declining optimism about housing and their personal finances is reinforcing increasingly realistic attitudes toward owning and renting.”

The number of respondents who think home values will rise during the next year fell by 6 percentage points to 25 percent, while 22 percent expect home prices to decline (4 percentage points higher). Americans continue to believe that rental prices will rise more than home prices and continue to believe that rental prices will go up rather than go down by a ratio of almost 4 to 1 (Americans expect rental prices to rise by 2.8 percent over the next year, compared to 3.6 percent in June).

For the first time, Delinquent borrowers are more likely to say they would rent rather than buy their next home — 50 percent would rent (up 10 percentage points since January) and 45 percent would buy (down 11 percentage points since January). More than half of Delinquent borrowers are very stressed about their debt, and, unlike most Americans, are falling into more debt — 29 percent of Delinquent borrowers have significantly increased their mortgage debt during the last year, almost three times the percentage of Mortgage borrowers who did so.

View the full report here.