4/03/2006

February Pending Home Sales

The leveling out of pending home sales (homes in escrow but not yet closed) is another indicator of a slowing market. The index of 100 is equal to 2001 activity, the first year NAR uses in this comparison. "The index in the West fell 7.6 percent to a level of 110.9 in February and was 14.8 percent below a year ago." See the article for other regions in the country. David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said most of the cooling in the housing market has already occurred. “We can expect a historically strong housing market moving forward, earmarked by generally balanced conditions across the country and fairly stable levels of home sales with some month-to-month fluctuations,” he said. “This normalization is healthy because it is taking a lot of the pressure off of the decision process for both home buyers and sellers – pressure that was driving abnormal rates of price growth across much of the country over the last few years.”

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