{"id":11464,"date":"2017-05-31T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T17:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therealdaily.com\/?p=11464"},"modified":"2017-05-31T12:01:38","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T17:01:38","slug":"pending-home-sales-second-consecutive-month-gives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/big-data\/pending-home-sales-second-consecutive-month-gives\/","title":{"rendered":"Pending home sales are down for a second consecutive month- what gives?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here we are again<\/h2>\n

April marks the second consecutive month that pending home sales were down year-over-year nationally and in all four major regions according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).<\/p>\n

Read also: Crystal ball: what will home sales do for the rest of this year?<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n

\"bar\"
\nThough there was a glimmer of relief from an increase in contract signings last month in the West region.<\/p>\n

Based on last year<\/h2>\n

The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a future indicator based on contract signings, decreased by 1.3 percent<\/a> to 109.8 in April from an already downed 111.3 in March.<\/p>\n

After last month\u2019s decline, the index is now 3.3 percent below the 2016 index, which is the first year-over-year decline since last December and the largest since June 2014 (7.1 percent).<\/p>\n

The PHSI in the Northeast<\/strong> decreased 1.7 percent to 97.2 in April, and is now 0.6 percent below a year ago.<\/p>\n

In the Midwest<\/strong> the index fell 4.7 percent to 104.4 in April, and is now 6.1 percent lower than April 2016.<\/p>\n

Pending home sales in the South<\/strong> declined 2.7 percent to an index of 125.9 in April and are now 2.3 percent below last April.<\/p>\n

The index in the West<\/strong> jumped 5.8 percent in April to 100.0, but is still 4.2 percent below a year ago.<\/p>\n

Lack of sales<\/h2>\n

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says that contract activity is waning this spring due to the very significant lack of supply levels which are, in turn, discouraging affordability conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch of the country for the second straight month saw a pullback in pending sales as the rate of new listings continues to lag the quicker pace of homes coming off the market,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yun added, \u201cRealtors are indicating that foot traffic is higher than a year ago, but it\u2019s obviously not translating to more sales.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Yun believes that there is little evidence these consistently low supply levels are going away anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Lack of inventory<\/h2>\n

Yun noted that homebuilding activity has not picked up enough this year and too few homeowners are listing their home for sale.<\/p>\n

\u201cProspective buyers are feeling the double whammy this spring of inventory that\u2019s down 9.0 percent from a year ago and price appreciation that\u2019s much faster than any rise they\u2019ve likely seen in their income.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThe unloading of single-family homes purchased by real estate investors during the downturn for rental purposes would also go a long way in helping relieve these inventory shortages,\u201d said Yun.<\/p>\n

He notes that investors aren’t ready to sell but says they should prepare to as “rental demand will soften as the overall population of young adults starts to shrink in roughly five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking forward<\/h2>\n

Yun forecasts existing-home sales to be around 5.64 million this year, an increase of 3.5 percent from 2016 (5.45 million).<\/p>\n

The national median existing-home price this year is expected to increase around 5 percent. In 2016, existing sales increased 3.8 percent and prices rose 5.1 percent.<\/p>\n

#PHSI<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(REAL ESTATE DATA) April data shows that the Pending Home Sales Index followed March’s lead in a downward direction by 1.3 percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337692,"featured_media":9172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[1576,263,592,1234],"class_list":["post-11464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-big-data","tag-april","tag-nar","tag-phsi","tag-real-estate-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/house-home-interior-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337692"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11464"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11467,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11464\/revisions\/11467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}