Pending home sales got a year-end swing last month, with Redfin reporting that pending contacts rose 4.1 percent month-over-month in December—the biggest increase since September 2021. December’s numbers also hit the highest level in more than a year.
Spurred in large part by falling rates and not as much by inventory, the average 30-year-fixed mortgage rate fell to 6.82 percent in December from 7.44 percent in November.
New listings rose just 0.1 percent month-over-month, though they were at the highest seasonally adjusted level since September 2022. Active listings rose 3.1 percent month-over-month but fell 5.1 percent from a year earlier.