The National Association of Realtors released their Pending Home Sales report for the month of February, and it showed that signed contracts on existing homes increased by 0.8%. This marks
the third consecutive month of growth in this report. Year-over-year, pending sales are still lower as they are now down 21.1%, but this number should be improving from here.
“After nearly a year, the housing sector’s contraction is coming to an end,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “Existing-home sales, pending contracts and new-home construction pending contracts have turned the corner and climbed for the past three months.”
It is funny how the strength of this report was somewhat muted via its initial release on certain media outlets. For instance, one source said that pending sales just merely “eked out” a “small” gain trying to make viewers dismiss the positive number. They also forgot to mention that it was the third month in a row of an increase and was very much better than expectations, which were estimating a 3% decline. Also, this report shows signed contracts from February when rates moved around 1% higher, which should prove that this report is even stronger than the numbers show.
Despite what the media portrayed; this was a strong report. Even though rates rose 1% in February, we still saw an increase of almost 1% in sales. This is huge. Yes, year-over-year sales were 21% lower when compared to last year, so it is apparent that there is still work that needs to be done, but it seems as though the worst is behind us, and future reports should continue an upward trend.
Source: http://bit.ly/3nETpzK
By: Jon Iacono