Pending home sales, commercial defaults each rise at record rates

<object id=”msnbc18bbff” classid=”clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000″ codebase=”http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=10,0,0,0″ height=”245″ width=”420″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640″><param name=”FlashVars” value=”launch=34226036&amp;width=420&amp;height=245″><param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”always”><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”><param name=”wmode” value=”opaque”><embed name=”msnbc18bbff” src=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640″ flashvars=”launch=34226036&amp;width=420&amp;height=245″ allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” wmode=”opaque” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” pluginspage=”http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash” height=”245″ width=”420″></object><p style=”background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-size: 11px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(153, 153, 153); margin-top: 5px; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; text-align: center; width: 420px;”><br><a href=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032072″ style=”border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(153, 153, 153) ! important; text-decoration: none ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; height: 13px; color: rgb(87, 153, 219) ! important;”></a></p>Pending home sales rose to 3.7 percent during the month of October, up 32 percent year-over-year, according to Real Estate Econometrics. That’s the highest annual increase ever recorded by the research firm, bringing its index to its highest level since March 2006. Lief Thomsen, founder and CEO of Mortgage Master, said that while the residential market appears to be steadily improving, the big question in the industry is what will happen in April when the homebuyer tax credit expires. Meanwhile, commercial mortgage defaults set records of their own. In that metric’s largest quarterly increase ever, commercial defaults doubled to 3.4 percent in the third quarter, <a href=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34226036#34226036″>CNBC’</a>s Diana Olick reported.