The Fed characterized consumers as "cautious, price sensitive, and focused on necessities".
If rate-setters prove cautious, house prices will take longer to reach bottom, but they are likely to fall all the same.
Mr. Kirshbaum, though cautious about price increases, also said that consumers' hunger for discounts led him to keep prices up.
She said buyers were cautious and price sensitive, and lenders were requiring a lot more cash down.
"I think I'm more cautious," Ms. Price said, "but really not changing much except throwing junk mail out unopened".
Even so, Focus was cautious: the price was only half of what it paid in 2008 for the high school satire "Hamlet 2," which did not succeed at the box office.
"We remain cautious as pricing fell a full 15% quarter-over-quarter, below our estimate of a 6% quarter-over-quarter decline, which caused the decrease in gross margins," J.P. Morgan said.
The Chinese, poor by global standards, are extremely cautious, ruthlessly price conscious and risk averse.
Group polarization research also suggests that participation in a market will accentuate risk preferences so that good news produces a cautious shift in prices (i.e., towards lower prices) whereas bad news produces a risky shift (i.e., towards higher prices).
Investors sold after a Goldman Sachs report yesterday cited a "cautious" outlook for prices.
