- Prior +0.8% (the estimate was down -2.3%)
- Pending home sales -5.2% versus 0.5% expected. Year on year -23.2%
- Pending homes index 78.9 versus 83.2 last month
- sales forecasts for 2020 are for existing homes falling -9.3%. New homes are up 4.5%
- Northwest -8.1%
- South +0.2%
- Midwest -10.7%
- West -8.0%
For the full report CLICK HEREIn March, pending home sales in the U.S. decreased by 5.2% compared to February, marking the first decline since November 2022. The lack of housing inventory has been cited as the primary reason for the drop, as it fails to meet national demand. The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) predicts that the economy will continue to add jobs and mortgage rates will fall, with housing starts also expected to decline by 7.3% in 2023 before rising 6.9% in 2024. NAR anticipates existing-home sales to drop by 9.3% in 2023, but increase by 15.4% in 2024, while newly constructed home sales will grow by 4.5% in 2023 and 11.9% in 2024. Median existing-home prices are forecasted to decrease by 1.8% in 2023 and increase by 2.8% in 2024, while median new home prices will fall by 1.9% in 2023 before improving by 4.2% in 2024.
The data falls for the first time after 3 straight month of gains.
From the national Association of realtors:
"The lack of housing inventory is a major constraint to rising sales," said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. "Multiple offers are still occurring on about a third of all listings, and 28% of homes are selling above list price. Limited housing supply is simply not meeting demand nationally."
They add:
"Sales in the second half of the year should be notably better than the first half as job gains continue and more favorable mortgage rates are expected," said Yun. "Sales of new homes are already matching 2019 pre-COVID activity and are expected to increase in 2023, largely due to plentiful inventory in this segment of the market."
The pending home sales report is released by the National Association of Realtors, a trade group. It captures the number of residential property transactions that have been contractually agreed upon but not yet closed. It's a reliable predictor of future home sales, typically within a 1-2 month time frame and captures sales of single-family homes, condos, and co-ops. In contract, the existing home sales report captures sales that have already closed. The report is seasonally adjusted to account for fluctuations in home-buying activity throughout the year and is benchmarked to a reference value of 100, which corresponds to the average level of contract activity in 2001.