"Housing affordability conditions have been at historic highs, but now the $80,000 first-time home buyer tax credit is beginning to impact the market," said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist in a prepared statement. " Since first-time home buyers must finalize their purchase by Nov. 30 to get the credit, we expect greater activity in the months ahead, and that should spark more sales by repeat buyers."
From CNNMoney.com: Pending home sales rebounding
The number home sales contracts signed in April Continued to bounce back from record lows hit last winter, according to a widely watched industry report. This is the third consecutive month of gains.
The Pending Home Sales Index from the National Association of Realtors rose 6.7% in April after jumping 3.2 % in March. That was far above the forecasts of experts surveyed by Briefing.com, who predicted a 0.5% increase. The index was 3.3% higher than 12 months earlier.
Pending home sales are a forward-looking indicator since many of the contracts don't result in completed deals for many weeks or months.
Many lenders I know have an extreme back log of pending home sales as they wait from asset managers to approve pending contracts. As more deals continue to get approved and the traffic jam gets freed up, plus lenders continuing to beef up staff to get loans closed we will continue to see these home sales numbers increase.
2 comments:
I guess this is just the way things go. I just hope that it's not just the pending sales that go up, but also the number of actual sales too.
Absolutely. It isn't over until the fat lady sings. Pending sales are only the start. If the deal doesn't close, it doesn't make a difference how many pending sales there are. It's the closing of the sales in the end that matters.
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