Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Pending Home Sales Report for October showing a whopping 31.8% year-over-year increase in pending home sales nationally coming largely as a result of the governments historic housing tax gimmick.Meanwhile, the NARs chief economist Lawrence Yun spins the concept that “pent-up” demand coming from “financially qualified renters“ is being unleashed on the nation’s housing markets by the governments housing tax carrot…
“Keep in mind that housing had been underperforming over most of the past year. Based on the demographics of our growing population, existing-home sales should be in the range of 5.5 million to 6.0 million annually, but we were well below the 5-million mark before the home buyer tax credit stimulus, … This means the tax credit is helping unleash a pent-up demand from a large pool of financially qualified renters, much more than borrowing sales from the future.”
The following chart shows the 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).
Look at the seasonally adjusted pending home sales results:- Nationally the index increased 31.8% as compared to October 2008.
- The Northeast region increased 44.2% as compared to October 2008.
- The Midwest region increased 36.6% as compared to October 2008.
- The South region increased 31.6% as compared to October 2008.
- The West region increased 21.9% as compared to October 2008.
