Pending home sales dropped during January, according to new data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), NAR’s forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings, tumbled by 4.6% to 70.6 in January, an all-time low; an index of 100 is equal to the level of contract activity in 2001. Year-over-year, pending transactions declined 5.2%.
The Midwest, South and West experienced month-over-month declines while the Northeast saw a modest gain. Year-over-year, contract signings lowered in all four regions. The South recorded the worst performances, with its PHSI plummeted 9.2% to 81.0, down 8.8% from one year earlier.
“It is unclear if the coldest January in 25 years contributed to fewer buyers in the market, and if so, expect greater sales activity in upcoming months,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “However, it’s evident that elevated home prices and higher mortgage rates strained affordability. Even a slight reduction in mortgage rates will likely ignite buyer interest, given rising incomes, increased jobs and more inventory choices.”
Did you forget to factor the impact of Federal job losses into your analysis; or the increase inflation rate, the high cost of food and other essentials? Do NAR overlook these influences because to admit it would not reflect well on Trump and his disfunctional cabinet?
Where did you get data supporting rising incomes and increased jobs. Reality supports the exact opposite.
The federal job losses are just beginning so it’s doubtful that could be the reason for January reporting. However, I can see how referencing it would make a good spin against Trump by leaving that part out of the equation. More likely, the reason is the lates interest rate decision made by the Fed which is speculated to be very Democratic leaning.
Bidenomics!
You have no idea of what you are speaking of. First, Trump took office on January 20, 2021, and Biden had been president, in which his excessive spending that caused $7.8 trillion of new debt, which included $5 trillion of additional spending for major and unnecessary bills.
Just the $1.9 trillion COVID bill in 2021, where only 9% of that went for COVID, caused 50% of our inflation per the Federal Reserve Board’s published paper by liberal Columbia economist, Bianchi.
When Biden took over mortgage rates were about 2.75%, as I know, I refinanced a family home at 2.87% about two weeks after Biden was in office, and it would have been lower had it not been a high rise.
With Biden, in 17 months inflation rose from 1.4% to 9.1%. The Fed then raised interest rates by 525 basis points, which took the average mortgage payment from $1700 per month in January, 2021, to nearly double about 3 years later to $3320.
Then Trump’s cabinet is not dysfunctional but producing incredible results. In less than one month from DHS and ICE, we have the lowest illegal immigration of the last 15 years, in which illegal immigration has declined by 95%.
Then, we have brought back 11 hostages, and had a cease fire with the war in Israel. So who are you calling dysfunctional? Our Secretary of State, our Treasury Secretary, our DHS Secretary, who is dysfunctional?
We are in a great crises from the idiot you likely voted for, as the interest on our debt increased from $350 billion to $1.1 trillion, which is about $250 billion more than our defense budget. With $36.5 trillion of debt, if we don’t cut government spending dramatically, then our country will default with payments on $28 trillion of T-bills, and that will have catastrophic circumstances.
Then, Elon Musk, who is working for free, and only makes recommendations has identified incredible amounts of waste, in a few weeks on his DOGE site he has found $65 billion of waste and fraud.
Even our GAO found every year that $250-$500 billion of government payments are improper. Our new Director of the EPA, a Lee Zeldin, he is not dysfunctional….he found a $20 billion slush fund outside of the banking system of the EPA, where Biden’s appointee stated to get rid of the money before Trump came to office was like throwing gold bricks off of the Titanic.
Secretary of State Rubio had set up peace talks with Putin, and facilitated the return of 11 hostages in less than a month.
So not only is this not dysfunctional, but this cabinet may be the very best in history and has likely done more in the first month in office than any other.
Here’s some great advice….get a clue, and speak of what you know, and learn of what you don’t.
Love your response to these uninformed individuals. I hope it will enlighten them to have an open mind.
Great post Randy Lazer!! Facts!!!
Is it possible that NAR data is off due to the partial dissolution of their near monopoly on sales?
And for Florida – the impact of climate change and the recent hurricanes (Ian, Helene and Milton) along with the accompanying insurance issues i.e. not paying claims, have had a lot to do with our declining sales and elevated inventory. The cold weather up North usually works in our favor here with second homes sales – our season is Jan to Apr – and those relocating or retiring. Not this year though. The needle is moving, but barely.
The LOUSY NAR Settlement is probably a big, overlooked factor in reducing real estate sales.
Listing Agents, Selling Agents, Buyers & Sellers are all adversely effected by this horrendous ruling; supposedly well-intended, but, with terrible real-life ramifications.
All Realtors were abandoned by the NAR, who should have appealed and appealed and appealed this bad decision.
You are right on Juanita. How long does Trump have to be in office before you other people quit blaming Biden for everything. Trumps threats of tariffs, job losses etc are scaring people into holding on to their money. Look at the facts we had an economy humming at the end of last year, the fastest growing economy in the world after Covid. When President Musk lays off the next 800,000 federal workers this economy will crash. Unemployment up THIS month. Stock market down THIS month. Now his solution to egg prices isn’t giving the people back their jobs that were fighting the Avain flu but to import eggs, I’m sure with tariffs that WE will pay for. Yeah this administration has their act together with their puppet president and cabinet. We know Musk the billionaire is running the show but don’t blame him, Biden must be telling him what to do. The people here blaming Biden need to look at some real facts not just the ones that are force fed to you by the right wing media. Hey and while we are all looking away at Musk and his chainsaw how much money has the Trump family earned with their cryptocurrency? These people are in it for themselves not the American citizens. All they care about is how much damage can they do to the country for Trumps revenge and how much money they can line their pockets with in their 4 years here. Again when will your eyes open that it is Trump and his threats destroying our economy not the Biden administration.
We’ve had four years of real facts! bideneconomics brought this country down to it’s knees! We dodged a bullet this past election. Not to mention the weaponization of the DOJ which directly affected our industry with that complete scam of a lawsuit! Nice try!
Deb, you are right the Economy was humming at the end of 2024 but only in Your head. And you are right again, Biden was not to blame, he was not capable of running the country or anything else for that matter. Maybe his wife is to blame and she even encouraged him to run for reelection. How could you love your spouse and do that to them when you know that he was incapable of doing the job.
Right now, the Democrats have no direction whatsoever and all they are doing is running interference. How anybody cannot see this is beyond me.