The National Association of Realtors developed the pending home sales index as a leading indicator of housing activity. As such, it is a leading indicator of existing home sales, not new home sales. A pending sale is one in which a contract was signed, but not yet closed. It usually takes four to six weeks to close a contracted sale. Why Investors Care
| Released on 4/8/08 For Feb 2008 | ||||||||
| ||||||||
Highlights
The outlook for the housing sector has worsened once again, this time with the pending existing-home sales index falling 1.9 percent in February to 84.6. The year-on-year rate, which improved in January, moved back below -20 percent at -21.4 percent. The Northeast, as it has in other reports, showed strength, up 3.2 percent on the month.
This report offers a look at sales of existing homes a couple of months down the road, which from this point, given not only this report but contraction in the jobs market and weak retail sales, continue to look grim. The dollar slipped as did Treasury yields in reaction to the data.
| 2008 Release Schedule | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
powered by
![[Econoday]](../../../../../../../../../images/logo.gif){kind=logo}