• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

U.S. pending home sales jump to seven-month high; mortgage applications fall

September 29, 2021 by David Barret Leave a Comment

September 29, 2021

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Contracts to buy U.S. previously owned homes rebounded to a seven-month high in August, but higher prices as supply remains tight are slowing the housing market momentum.

Other data on Wednesday showed applications for loans to buy a house fell last week as mortgage rates increased after the Federal Reserve signaled it would likely begin reducing its monthly bond purchases as soon as November. There are indications that supply could improve in the fall.

“Supply constraints that are boosting prices are impacting affordability and have been a headwind for buyers,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in White Plains, New York. “Gradually easing supply constraints should be a positive, although affordability concerns could temper sales in the very near term.”

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said its Pending Home Sales Index, based on signed contracts, jumped 8.1% last month to 119.5. That was the highest reading since January and followed two straight monthly declines.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast contracts, which become sales after a month or two, increasing 1.4%. Compared with a year ago, pending home sales fell 8.3% in August.

The housing market boomed early in the COVID-19 pandemic amid an exodus from cities as people worked from home and took classes online. But the pandemic tailwind is fading as vaccines allow workers to return to offices.

Expensive homes are also sidelining some first-time buyers from the market. The NAR reported last week that the share of first-time buyers was the smallest in more than 2-1/2 years in August. Existing home sales dropped last month.

Data on Tuesday showed consumer sentiment towards buying a home weakening for a third straight month in September and house prices posting record gains in July from a year-ago.

Lumber prices have plummeted from record highs scaled in May, which economists and realtors hope will encourage builders to ramp-up construction of single-family homes. The resumption of foreclosures after a pandemic moratorium is also expected to ease the inventory crunch.

But house prices are likely to remain elevated, which together with rising mortgage rates could further erode affordability. In a separate report on Wednesday, the Mortgage Bankers Association said applications for loans to buy a home fell 1.2% last week from the prior week.

Loan purchase applications were down 12% from a year ago. According to the MBA, mortgage rates across all loan types increased since last Wednesday’s announcement by the Fed, with the benchmark 30-year fixed rate reaching its highest level since early July.

The U.S. central bank’s massive monthly bond buying program to aid the economy’s recovery from the pandemic has helped to keep mortgage rates low. With U.S. Treasury yields rising in recent days, mortgage rates could creep higher, which could draw some buyers into the market in anticipation of further rises.

“We anticipate home sales will trend sideways over the remainder of 2021,” said Mahir Rasheed, a U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in New York.

The surge in pending home sales last month was led by the South and Midwest regions, where the NAR said house price increases have been generally moderate relative to the rest of the country. Contracts soared 10.4% in the Midwest and vaulted 8.6% in the densely populated South. They rose 4.6% in the Northeast and advanced 7.2% in the West.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Source Link U.S. pending home sales jump to seven-month high; mortgage applications fall

David Barret
David Barret

Related posts:

  1. Evacuated Afghans, hoping to resettle in U.S., face extended limbo in third countries
  2. Daily Crunch: Fintech startup Jeeves snags $500M valuation after $57M Series B
  3. Tyk raises $35M for its open-source, open-ended approach to enterprise API management
  4. Malaysia says auditor KPMG to pay $80 million in 1MDB settlement

Filed Under: News

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • An “Encounter” With Something From Outside Our Solar System May Have Cooled Earth In A Big Way
  • Curiosity Spots “Coral Reef” Rock On Mars. It’s A Sign Of Ancient Water
  • Watch: Canopy Wildlife Bridges Restore Vital Treetop Connections For Animals In Peru
  • “Fire Clouds” Form Over Grand Canyon National Park As Biggest Wildfire In US Burns
  • You Can See 6 Planets Aligned In The Sky Right Now – And 2 Conjunctions
  • Colliding Photons In Crossed Beams Of Light Create Virtual Particles That Test The Standard Model
  • Don’t Stand So Close To Me: 2 Meters Of Socially Distanced Queuing Is Not Always Enough
  • Cockatoos Love To Dance, Showing Off 30 Different Moves That Some Combine In Unique Ways
  • Loch Ness Monster Sightings Don’t Match “Impossible” Images Of The Beast – So What Are People Seeing?
  • The Oldest Government Computer Still Working Is Over 25 Billion Kilometers From Earth
  • We May Finally Know Where The “Hobbit” Humans Came From
  • Meet The Pickle Slug, A Knobbly Wonder That Lays Little Pickled Onions For Eggs
  • Half A Billion Years Ago, The Grand Canyon Was Filled With Penis Worms
  • “Yellow Brick Road” Found On Pacific Ocean Floor During Groundbreaking Volcano Expedition
  • How Often Do You Really Need To Change Your Bed Sheets?
  • The Origins Of Dark Matter: Two New Theories Talk Of Hidden Reality And The Universe’s Edge
  • The First Molecules In The Universe Reveal Surprises After Being Bombarded With Deuterium
  • Meet Henry, The World’s Largest Elephant Ever Recorded, Who Was Heavier Than A T. Rex
  • HTLV-1: The Deadly Virus No One Talks About
  • Inland Taipan: The Deadliest Snake In The World?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version