Pending Home Sales Hit Highest Level In A Year

Perhaps it will be a warm Fall for the residential market as pending sales hit their highest level in a year in October. According to Redfin, pending sales were up 1 percent compared to the month prior. Pending sales fell 4.8 percent annually, but that’s the smallest annual decline in almost two years.

New listings in October were comparable with September’s level, the highest in six months on a seasonally adjusted basis. Active listings, the total number of homes for sale, rose 1.4 percent month-over-month to the highest level since May and were down 12.5 percent from a year earlier—the smallest decline in four months.

Redfin also found that while pending sales have inched up, closed home sales have continued to decline. In October, closed sales fell 1.8 percent from a month earlier

Roughly 54,000 U.S. home-purchase agreements were canceled in October, 17.2 percent of homes that went under contract that month—the highest percentage in Redfin records that date back to 2017. That’s up from 16.1 percent one month earlier.