Pending Home Sales Tick Up In November, First Time In Five Months
Source: Forbes
The nation’s pending home sales nosed up 0.2% in November, ending five straight months of decline, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.
NAR’s’ Pending Home Sales Index scooted to 101.7 in November, above October’s (revised downward) 101.5 level. NAR and others blamed October’s weak figures in part on the government shutdown. But the real problem is rising home prices and mortgage rates, which continue to affect the latest numbers. November’s figure is still 1.6% percent below the pending home sales figure one year earlier, in November 2012.Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said in a statement that the market is flattening. “We may have reached a cyclical low because the positive fundamentals of job creation and household formation are likely to foster a fairly stable level of contract activity in 2014,” he said. “Although the final months of 2013 are finishing on a soft note, the year as a whole will end with the best sales total in seven years.”
The Pending Home Sales Index measures housing activity based on signed real estate contracts for existing single-family homes, condos and co-ops (not new development). Because it tracks contracts signed, not sales closed, it is considered a more up-to-the-moment indicator than the NAR’s Existing Homes Sales index, which track closings. (Most closings take four to six weeks.) Existing home sales fell in November for the 3rd straight month, but given the uptick in contracts signed, should rise again down the road.
Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2013/12/30/pending-home-sales-tick-up-in-november-first-time-in-five-months/