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With the Fed raising rates fast, homeowners are watching as demand for their homes begins to dry up. Pending home sales fell by 8.6% in June. That was much further than forecast, reports Aarthi Swaminathan at MarketWatch:
U.S. pending-home sales fell in June by 8.6%, according to the monthly index released Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors.
Analysts polled by the Wall Street Journal had forecast the pending home sales index to drop by 1%.
The drop in pending home sales is the biggest since the depths of the pandemic in April and March 2020. It also follows gloomy data on new home sales, builder confidence, as well as declining mortgage application volume.
Key details: Compared with a year earlier, transactions were down 20%. All four major regions posted declines in June on a year-over-year basis, largest of which was in the West.
Big picture: Potential homebuyers are likely sitting on the sidelines, amid recession fears, high inflation, and higher mortgage rates.
Read more here.
