Skip to footer

Pending home sales fall. Shutdown to blame?

Pending home sales declined 0.6 percent since September and fell 1.6 percent below the level seen in October 2012, according to the National Association of Realtors. 

|
SoldAtTheTop
This chart shows the monthly and annual percent change in US pending home sales since 2004. Pending home sales fell in October, but processing delays stemming from the government shutdown may be to blame, in part.

Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Pending Home Sales Report for October showing that pending home sales declined with the seasonally adjusted national index falling 0.6% from September and falling 1.6% below the level seen in October 2012. 

Meanwhile, the NARs chief economist Lawrence Yun suggested that the recent government shutdown impacted pending sales as a result of IRS delays in borrower income verification:

"The government shutdown in the first half of last month sidelined some potential buyers. In a survey, 17 percent of Realtors reported delays in October, mostly from waiting for IRS income verification for mortgage approval, ... We could rebound a bit from this level, but still face the headwinds of limited inventory and falling affordability conditions. Job creation and a slight dialing down from current stringent mortgage underwriting standards going into 2014 can help offset the headwind factors,"

The following chart shows the seasonally adjusted national pending home sales index along with the percent change on a year-over-year basis as well as the percent change from the peak set in 2005 (click for larger version). 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Pending home sales fall. Shutdown to blame?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Paper-Economy/2013/1126/Pending-home-sales-fall.-Shutdown-to-blame
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe