Pending home sales drop nationwide, regionally

In what’s becoming an at least weekly reality, more data has come out about the housing market that only leaves speculation in its wake. The National Association of Realtors on Monday announced that what it calls pending home sales declined nationally in October by 3.2 percent, and, in the Northeast, by 6.9 percent. Both nationally and regionally, too, pending sales declined over October 2004 by 3.3 percent nationwide and 6.4 percent in the Northeast. The data’s based on pending sales of existing homes, and a sale is considered pending when the contract has been signed by the transaction has not closed. The national decline in pending sales will help restore balance to the market, according to the NAR, by correcting inventory shortages. The NAR in late November announced that existing home sales in October also declined while the government the same week declared that sales of new homes had increased.