The Pending Home Sales Index is a forward-looking indicator tracked by the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR). The index rose 5.2 percent to 79.4 based on contracts signed in July from a revised 75.5 in June. This index is based upon signed purchase contracts, not actual closings.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, discusses the Pending Home Sales Index in this three minute video.
11 million residential properties were underwater at the end of the second quarter. This is down 200,000 from the first quarter.
Arizona is the second highest negative equity state with half of Arizona properties in a negative equity position.
This data is provided by CoreLogic and differs slightly from data we reported on August 10
th (
Not So Many Underwater In Q2) that use information from Reuters. The key point is both sources agree that the number of underwater residential properties is lower in Q2 and the primary reason is more of the properties went into foreclosure which takes the out of the underwater pool.
The New York Times has an
analysis of the foreclosure and delinquency situations.
Resource: The New York Times
A quarter of today’s renters have no intention of ever buying a home. A third of the remaining 75 percent plan to wait two or more years. Read the entire article by clicking on the REALTOR®Mag link below.
The big news today is the major fall in existing home sales. The first article I saw was from the
BBC. Then
The New York Times picked it up and then
REALTOR®Mag.
The main point of the reports is that July existing home sales fell to an annualized rate of 3.83 million units down from a revised June level of 5.26 million units in June. This is the lowest level since May of 1995.
Timing! This morning we published a post titled “At Risk Cities” regarding the cities most likely to face a worsening economy. Now we have a list of metro areas likely to experience home price declines.
PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. tracks pricing and market conditions in 384 metropolitan markets. Their analysis identifies the following 20 “riskiest markets.” The number in parenthesis is the probability of further price declines.
- Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla. (99.9 percent)
- Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev. (99.9)
- Ft. Lauderdale-Pompano-Deerfield, Fla. (99.9)
- Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif. (99.9)
- Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla. (99.9)
- Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Fla. (99.9)
- Jacksonville, Fla. (99.9)
- Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, Calif. (99.9)
- Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, Calif. (99.7)
- Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, Ariz. (99.4)
- San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Calif. (98.8)
- Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich. (98.7)
- Sacramento-Arden-Rovesville, Calif. (98)
- Newark-Union, N.J.-Penn. (94.7)
- Edison-New Brunswick, N.J. (94.7)
- Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, R.I.-Mass. (93.6)
- Oakland-Fremont-Hayward, Calif. (91.9)
- Nassau-Suffolk, N.Y. (91.5)
- New York-White Plains-Wayne N.Y.-N.J. (90.4)
- San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif. (90)
I want to point out that the summer edition of the
Is now available on line. The Indicator covers economic happenings in Cochise County and is published quarterly by the Cochise College
Center for Economic Research. You can access the Indicator by clicking the logo above or in the right sidebar.
This summer edition has a fact filled article on the Cochise County housing market using data from both the Tucson and Sierra Vista MLS.
Resource: Center for Economic Research
Housing starts rose 1.7 percent in July. This was less that expected and is down 7 percent from July of last year. New building permits also fell.
Even with the rise in July the rest of the news resulted in a gloomy outlook. Home builder confidence fell in August to the worst level since March of ’09
