Pending home sales bounce back in December

• “As a result, young households are missing out on the wealth gains most homeowners have accrued from the 41 percent cumulative rise in existing home prices since 2011.” NAR predicts that existing-home sales will to be around 5.54 million this year, an increase of 1.7 percent from 2016, which was the best year of sales since 2006.
• Sales will struggle to build on last year’s strong pace if inventory conditions don’t improve.” Yun says the real estate market has some oversupply right now, but a large portion of it is at the upper end of the market – and the evidence is in NAR’s Decemberdata on the year-over-year change in single-family sales by price range.
• Last month, sales were up around 10 percent compared to December 2015 for homes sold at or above $250,000, but homes sold between $100,000 and $250,000 only increased 2.3 percent.
• The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, increased 1.6 percent to 109.0 in December from 107.3 in November.
• Pending home sales in the South rose 2.4 percent to an index of 121.3 in December and are now 0.5 percent above last December.
• With last month’s uptick in activity, the index is now 0.3 percent higher year-to-year (108.7 in December2015).
• The index in the West jumped 5.0 percent in December to 106.1, and is now 5.0 percent higher than a year ago.
• Pending home sales picked up in December as solid increases in the South and West offset weakening activity in the Northeast and Midwest, according to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR).

Source: Florida Realtors