Pending Home Sales Down – Severe Weather To Blame

Pending home sales are down and additional declines are expected from abnormal weather conditions, according to the National Association of Realtors®.

Moreover, the abnormally severe and prolonged winter weather, which affected large regions of the U.S., hampered shopping activity in February.

The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in January 2010, fell 7.6% to 90.4 from an upwardly revised 97.8 in December, but remains 12.3% higher than January 2009 when it was 80.5.

With prolonged bad weather in much of the nation, abnormal swings in housing data is not all that abnormal. The real question that remains to be seen is, what happens when the first time homebuyer tax credit expires at the end of April. Stay tuned…