Pending home sales in November dipped 0.9 percent, which isn’t a dramatic number by any means, but certainly notable as part of a continuing trend. For the third time in four months, pending home sales (contracts signed) slipped, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), but why? <\/p>\n
Further, the South and Midwest actually saw gains for the month, but the national number was pulled down by the Northeast and West regions. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Sure, the index is 2.7 percent above November 2014, marking the 15th consecutive month of year-over-year gains, and May hit a nine-year high, something is afoot. <\/p>\n
So what is going on!?<\/h2>\n
NAR Chief Economist, Dr. Lawrence Yun points to home price spikes and a cooling economy. <\/p>\n
\u201cHome prices rising too sharply in several markets, mixed signs of an economy losing momentum and waning supply levels have acted as headwinds in recent months despite low mortgage rates and solid job gains,\u201d said Dr. Yun. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cWhile feedback from Realtors\u00ae continues to suggest healthy levels of buyer interest, available listings that are move-in ready and in affordable price ranges remain hard to come by for many would-be buyers.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
According to Yun, with existing housing inventory already below year ago levels and new home construction still deficient, it\u2019s likely supply constraints and faster price appreciation will reappear once the spring buying season begins.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially with mortgage rates likely on the rise, affordability issues could creep up enough to temper sales growth \u2013 especially to first-time buyers in higher priced markets,\u201d adds Yun.<\/p>\n
Regional performances varied widely<\/h2>\n
Pending home sales in the Northeast decreased 3.0 percent, but remain 4.3 percent above a year ago. In the Midwest the index rose 1.0 percent, and is now 4.1 percent above November 2014. <\/p>\n
Conversely, signed contracts rose in the South by 1.3 percent, up 0.5 percent from a year ago. The index in the West declined 5.5 percent in November to 100.4, but remains 4.5 percent above a year ago.<\/p>\n
Going forward<\/h2>\n
In a statement, NAR stated, “Existing-home sales are forecast to finish 2015 at a pace of around 5.25 million \u2013 the highest since 2006, but roughly 25 percent below the prior peak set in 2005 (7.08 million). The national median existing-home price for all of this year will be close to $220,700, up around 6.0 percent from a year ago.”<\/p>\n
#HomeSales<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pending home sales slipped for a fourth consecutive month, but why? Some regions saw gains, but as a nation, some economic factors are at play, holding sales back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335938,"featured_media":4923,"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":[300,91],"tags":[316],"class_list":["post-6238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nar-reports","category-big-data","tag-pending-home-sales"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/08\/house-home.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6238","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\/335938"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6238"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6241,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6238\/revisions\/6241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}