Following the weakness in new home sales, starts, and permits, pending home sales modest beat of expectations (+1.4% MoM vs 0.5% exp) provides a glimmer of hope for homebuilders and recovery-narrative-buyers. The decoupling between new- and pending-home sales was also seen at the start of last year, and ended badly for pending home sales…
The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, climbed 1.4 percent to 110.5 in March from an downwardly revised 109.0 in February and is now 1.4 percent above March 2015 (109.0). After last month’s slight gain, the index has increased year-over-year for 19 consecutive months and is at its highest reading since May 2015 (111.0).
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says last month’s pending sales increase signals a solid beginning to the spring buying season.
“Despite supply deficiencies in plenty of areas, contract activity was fairly strong in a majority of markets in March,” he said. “This spring’s surprisingly low mortgage rates are easing some of the affordability pressures potential buyers are experiencing and are taking away some of the sting from home prices that are still rising too fast and above wage growth.”
In the short-term, the healthy labor market and favorable borrowing costs should lead to sustained buyer demand and a durable pace of sales. However, Yun says the consequences from a failure to construct more single-family homes in recent years are starting to impact some top job producing markets, where endless supply shortages continue to limit choices for buyers and are driving up prices beyond what a growing share of households can comfortably afford.
“Demand is starting to weaken in some areas, particularly in the West, where the median home price has risen an astonishing 38 percent in the past three years,” adds Yun.
“As a result, pending sales in the region have now declined in four of the last five months and are lower than one year ago for the third month in a row. Closed sales in the region in March were also below last year’s pace.”
The post Pending Home Sales Tumble In The West As “Demand Is Starting To Weaken” appeared first on crude-oil.top.