Weakness in existing home sales was swamped by surprising strength in new home sales (largely skewed by dramatic builder incentives) and today pending home sales break even ( expects it to show a small month-on-month increase of 0.8%). In contrast, pending home sales fell 5.2% month-over-month, dragging year-over-year sales down 23.26%…

Source: Bloomberg

The Pending Home Sales report is often considered a leading indicator of existing home sales, as homes are typically under contract for a month or two before they sell.

“Lack of housing inventory is a major constraint to increased sales,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.

There are pockets where demand remains strong. Yun said about a third of all listings receive multiple offers, and a similar portion sell above list price.

“Multiple offers are still taking place on about a third of all listings and 28% of homes are selling above list price. The limited supply of homes is simply not meeting demand nationally.”

None of this should come as a surprise as, as we perfectly predicted, the resurgence in mortgage rates led to a resumption of falling sales…

Source: Bloomberg

Which apparently is what Powell wants.

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