Dec 9: Pending Home Sales Decrease 0.7%

The Pending Home Sales Index decreased by 0.7%, to 89.5 in October, following an upwardly revised 4.3% decline in September (originally reported at -4.6%), while analysts expected a decline near 4.6% for October, coming at an 84.8% surprise.  The index was 89.8 in October 2007, was as high as 101.4 in June of 2007, but has only decreased by 1% over the past year.  This is a leading indicator for the housing sector and has proven to stabilize over this past month.

“Despite the turmoil in the economy, the overall level of pending home sales has been remarkably stable over the past year, holding in a generally narrow range,” said. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist “We did see a spike in August when mortgage conditions temporarily improved, which underscores two things – there is a pent-up demand, and access to safe, affordable mortgages will bring more buyers into the market.”  He expects growth to contract in the first half of 2009, then to expand and stabilize and expand thereafter with the home sales recovery as a catalyst to this growth.

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