US pending home sales up slightly after six-month slump

U.S. pending home sales in November ticked upward for the first time in half a year, according to National Association of Realtors data released today.

Contracts to buy previously owned homes, also known as the Pending Home Sales Index, saw a 0.2 percent month-over-month boost to 101.7. Despite this good news, the year-over-year change was a 1.6 percent decline. Economist projects that signed contracts would go up 1 percent from October, which wasn’t far off.

“Several housing indicators have improved recently and the very modest increase in pending home sales in November is a tentative sign that activity is stabilizing, or perhaps even picking up,” JPMorgan Chase economist Daniel Silver told Reuters.

All-cash buyers accounted for 42 percent of the nearly 500,000 U.S. home purchases last month, according to RealtyTrac, as reported last week. That figure is the highest seen since RealtyTrac began tracking all-cash purchases in 2011. [Reuters] — Mark Maurer