{"id":26307,"date":"2023-04-27T14:05:56","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T14:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/us-pending-home-sales\/"},"modified":"2023-04-27T14:10:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T14:10:37","slug":"us-pending-home-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/us-pending-home-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"US pending home sales slump unexpectedly in March"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) &#8211;     Contracts to buy U.S. previously owned homes tumbled unexpectedly in March to snap a three-month rebound, raising a caution flag about what had appeared to be a nascent recovery in a housing market that has been clobbered by rising interest rates.<\/p>\n<p>The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said on Thursday its Pending Home Sales Index, based on signed contracts, fell 5.2% last month to 78.9, the lowest since December. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast pending sales to have increased 0.5% in March, but the reported decline was larger than even the most pessimistic estimate in the survey.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The lack of housing inventory is a major constraint to rising sales,&#8221; said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. &#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The housing market has been the sector of the economy most visibly affected by the Federal Reserve&#8217;s aggressive run of interest rate increases aimed at bringing down inflation, but 2023 had begun with some indications the worst may have passed.<\/p>\n<p>That optimism was dented earlier this month when NAR reported that existing home sales slid 2.4% last month. While some firming has continued in the much-smaller market for new homes, the pending homes data suggests the market&#8217;s overall recovery is likely to be choppy.<\/p>\n<p>Yun said sales should improve later in the year as he expects continued job growth and mortgage interest rates to fall to about 6% by year end from the current 6.55%.<\/p>\n<p>Contract signings were lower in the Northeast, Midwest and West, while the South saw a fractional gain.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by Andrea Ricci)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/us-pending-home-sales\/file-photo-a-for-sale-sign-is-posted-outside-a\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3Q0NE-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3Q0NE-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) &#8211; Contracts to buy U.S. previously owned homes tumbled unexpectedly in March to snap a three-month rebound, raising a caution flag about what had appeared to be a nascent recovery in a housing market that has been clobbered by rising interest rates. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said on Thursday its Pending Home [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":26308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-economy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3Q0NE-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26309,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26307\/revisions\/26309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}