WASHINGTON — The outlook for the housing market dimmed further Tuesday as the nation's largest buyer of home mortgages said it racked up more than $2 billion in quarterly losses and forecast a steeper drop in home prices this year.

If Fannie Mae's prediction proves true, the real estate woes could further shake the confidence of consumers already stung by rising prices for food and fuel and an anemic job market.

Home foreclosures are accelerating around the country, adding to the glut of unsold properties and further depressing prices. As a result, a growing number of homeowners are saddled with loans that outstrip the value of their houses.

"I think that right now we are in the belly of the cycle," Fannie Mae's president and chief executive officer, Daniel Mudd, said during a conference call with analysts.

Mudd said home prices fell in the first quarter "faster than anyone anticipated" and that the company foresees a decline of 7 percent to 9 percent for the year, compared with earlier forecasts of a 5 percent to 7 percent drop.

The rising tide of delinquencies and foreclosures poses considerable dangers to the broader economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Monday as he urged Congress to take additional steps to alleviate the problems.

When businesses see consumer confidence buckling under the housing slump, they too start to cut back, noted Michael Gregory, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto.

The tax rebate checks arriving in Americans' mailboxes may mitigate the chill for a while, but eventually the weakness in the housing market "will continue to drag down consumer spending," he said.

"Is the average American prepared to step up and take out a loan and buy a house? Probably not," Gregory said.

Economists say the stricken housing market is souring the mood of consumers, the most powerful force in the economy. Also squeezing family budgets are higher prices for food and fuel.

The average price of gas on Tuesday was $3.61 a gallon nationwide, an increase of 20 percent from a year earlier, and relief does not appear to be coming anytime soon, with some experts predicting an average price of $4 in the weeks ahead.

Filling up family members' stomachs also has become costlier.

Amid rising prices for grains and feedstock, Americans are paying higher prices at the grocery store. Egg prices jumped 40 percent in the last year and flour prices have risen 50 percent since January, raising the price of bread, cereal and other groceries.

To help stabilize housing and the overall economy, which many economists say is on the precipice of its first recession since 2001, the Federal Reserve embarked last fall on an interest rate-cutting campaign — its most aggressive in decades.

Fannie, meanwhile, has been encouraged by the government to step up its purchases of mortgages as a way to provide some relief to the housing market. In recent months, Fannie and its smaller government-chartered sibling, Freddie Mac, have bought up hundreds of billions of dollars in additional mortgages and three-quarters of mortgage-backed securities are now issued by the two companies.