Pending home sales slipped 10.6 percent in February, according to the National Association of Realtors. Each of the four U.S. regions tracked by NAR saw month-over-month declines in February, while results were mixed in the four regions year-over-year.
The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings, dropped to 110.3 in February—an index of 100 is equal to the level of contract activity in 2001. Year-over-year, contract signings fell 0.5 percent.
“The demand for a home purchase is widespread, multiple offers are prevalent, and days-on-market are swift but contracts are not clicking due to record-low inventory,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.
“Only the upper-end market is experiencing more activity because of reasonable supply,” Run added. “Demand, interestingly, does not yet appear to be impacted by recent modest rises in mortgage rates.”
Nationally, homes priced above $250,000 have largely been driving sales for several months, though NAR points out that even those properties priced in the $500,000-$1 million range are seeing low inventory.
Regionally, the pending homes sales in the West fell 7.4 percent in February, followed by the Northeast at 9.2 percent, the Midwest at 9.5 percent and the South at13.0 percent.