U.S. Pending Home Sales Fall For Eighth Straight Month In February

(RTTNews) - Pending home sales in the U.S. decreased for the eighth consecutive month in February, according to a report released by the National Association of Realtors on Thursday.

NAR said its pending home sales index dropped by 0.8 percent to 93.9 in February after edging down by 0.2 percent to a downwardly revised 94.7 in January.

A pending home sale is one in which a contract was signed but not yet closed. Normally, it takes four to six weeks to close a contracted sale.

With the monthly decrease, NAR said the pending home sales index fell to its lowest level since hitting 92.2 in October of 2011.

As a result of the pullback seen over the past few months, the index is also down by 10.5 percent compared to a reading of 104.9 in February of last year.

While the pending home sales index has continued to trend lower, Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, noted that contract signings have been little changed for the past three months, implying the market appears to be stabilizing.

"Moreover, buyer traffic information from our monthly Realtor survey shows a modest turnaround, and some weather delayed transactions should close in the spring," Yun said.

The continued decrease by the pending home sales index came as pending sales in the South and Northeast fell by 4.0 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.

On the other hand, the report showed that pending home sales in the Midwest and West increased by 2.8 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively.

NAR forecast existing-home sales at 5.0 million in 2014, just below the nearly 5.1 million in 2013. Housing starts are expected to rise almost 19 percent in 2014, the group said.

On Tuesday, the Commerce Department released a separate report showing a pullback in new home sales in the month of February.

The report said new home sales fell 3.3 percent to an annual rate of 440,000 in February from the revised January rate of 455,000.

With the decrease, new home sales fell to their lowest annual rate since hitting 403,000 in September of last year.