| July Pending Home Sales Down |
| Written by Jonathan Smoke | |
| 09.10.2008 | |
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Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts) The National Association of Realtors reported the preliminary figures for pending home sales in July yesterday. Economists were divided on what to expect, but the majority expected a decline over June and that is indeed what was reported. The NAR report noted: “The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in July, fell 3.2 percent to 86.5 from an upwardly revised reading of 89.4 in June, which had risen 5.8 percent from May. The July index remains 6.8 percent below July 2007 when it stood at 92.8.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said home sales continue to edge up and down. ‘Pending home sales are oscillating month-to-month, with the long-term trend essentially flat,’ he said. ‘Overly stringent lending criteria imposed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the past month no doubt held back contract signings.’ Even with the latest pullback, pending home sales have been fairly stable on a national basis for nearly a year, with dramatic local market differences continuing….” There is quite a bit of variation in comparing the month-to-month and year-over-year results. The Northeast was down 7.5% over June and down 13.2% over July 2007. The West was down 10.6% over June but was 6.5% higher than last July. The South was flat month-over-month and down 13.4 % over last July. The Midwest was up 2.8% over June and was only down 2.4% over last July. The Northeast appears to be oscillating in a depressed level of activity. The West came off a one-year high in June but is still in a higher range of activity than the lows of 2007. The Midwest seems to be slowly improving. The South is the strongest region over all. Its year-over-year comps don’t look too good because the South still had strong sales relative to the rest of the country a year ago. 
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