An analysis is performed to examine the equilibrium state and the stability of modeled Reynolds stress equations for homogeneous turbulent shear flows. The system of the governing equations consists of four coupled ordinary differential equations. The equilibrium states are found by the steady state solution of the governing equations. In order to investigate the stability of the system about its state in equilibrium, and eigenvalue problem is constructed. As a result, constraints for the coeffieients in the model equations are obtained by the stability condition of the equilibrium state as well as by their physically realizable bounds. It is observed that the models with pressure-strain rate correlation that are linear in the anisotropy tensor are stable and produce reasonable equilibrium tensor do not behave properly. Stability considerations about three most commonly used models are given in detail in the final section.