The
number of homes under contract to sell increased in May.
It's the fourth straight month in which sales volume increased,
corroborating the growing notion that housing is on the mend in
most U.S. markets.
Consider these other housing-related stories from the past month:
Put it all together and it looks like the housing market is about
to reach its bottom (if it hasn't already).
But just because homes are going under contract to sell doesn't
mean that they actually will sell. A "deal" can fall
apart for all sorts of reasons including failed home
inspections, buyer-seller disputes, and mortgage-related
problems.
In general, though, as the number of pending contracts increase,
we find that Existing Home Sales rise, too, some 45-60 days into
the future. And so long as buyers' demand for homes remains
strong, we would expect that home prices edge higher.
It's too soon to say that housing has turned the corner for
certain, but there's an awful lot of data lately that suggests
that it has.
