• 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

  • If They Take Fluoride Out Of The Water, What Could Happen To Americans’ Teeth?
  • Paraglider Accidentally Flies Into The “Death Zone” 8,500 Meters Up – And Survives
  • World’s Oldest Fingerprint, Bioacoustics Could Give Us “A Peek Into The Language Of Wolves”, And Much More This Week
  • Please Stop Jamming Coins Into The Rocky Cracks Of Legendary Giant’s Causeway
  • We’re A Step Closer To Knowing Who Made The Earliest Known Stone Tools
  • These Little Birds Are All But Extinct – But There Is Still Time To Save Them
  • The Three Types Of Female Orgasm
  • Elon Musk Has Announced His Bombastic Plan To Get Humans To Mars
  • China Unveils World’s Largest Offshore Wind Turbine With Hub Height Of 185 Meters
  • Oldest Fingerprint, AI Decoding Wolf Language, And Injecting Life On Other Worlds?
  • “There Are Glimmers Of Hope”: Search For One Of The World’s Most Endangered Pigeons Just Scored A Big Win
  • Earth Has A 1-In-100,000 Chance Of Being Ejected From The Solar System Due To A Passing Star
  • “Necrobotics” Turns Dead Spider Corpses Into Biohybrid Robots
  • Why Even Traveling Close To The Speed Of Light Is So Hard
  • Peer Into The Universe’s Distant Past Thanks To JWST’s Longest-Exposure Photo Yet
  • First Evidence For Chubby Cheeks In Dinosaurs Challenges Our Understanding Of How They Chewed
  • The 2021 “Heat Dome” Killed Her Mother. Now, She’s Suing The Oil Companies Responsible
  • Two Of The Most Destructive Termites Got It On, Sparking Hybrid Threat In Florida
  • The Mad Gasser of Mattoon: A Story Of Anxiety And Hysteria In America’s Heartland
  • Tourists Swimming With Orcas In Mexico As Tour Guides Exploit Legal Loopholes
  • 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