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October Pending Home Sales Continue Their Decline
Monday, November 30, 2020
Pending home sales, which ended a four-month
streak of gains in September with a 2.2 percent decline, slipped further in
October. The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said its Pending Home
Sales Index (PHSI), a measure based on contracts signed during the month to purchase
existing single-family homes, townhomes, condos, and cooperative apartments,
was down 1.1 percent compared to the previous month. The index, now at a 128.9
level, remains 20.2 percent higher than in October 2019. Analysts had been expecting a rebound
in the forward-looking indicator. Those polled by Econoday had forecast
over a range of a 1.0 percent increase to 3.9 percent with a consensus of 2.0
percent. Trading Economics had predicted a 1.0 percent gain. "Pending home transactions saw a
small drop off from the prior month but still easily outperformed last year's
numbers for October," said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist. "The housing
market is still hot, but we may be starting to see rising home prices hurting
affordability."
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