Innovative Mortgage Solutions

Pending Home Sales-

Pending Home Sales, which measures signed contracts on existing homes, rose almost 1% in February…but you wouldn’t know that was good news if you listened to Diana Olick on CNBC. Diana did her best to put a negative spin on the report, saying that pending sales “eked out” a “small” gain, doing her best to make you dismiss the number. This is the same person that made a huge deal out of the 0.2% decrease in the median home price earlier in the week…and failed to mention it was not real appreciation and was skewed due to the mix of sales. She also forgot to mention that it was the third month of increases in a row and was MUCH better than expectations, looking for a 3% decline. These are signed contracts in February, when rates moved 1% higher. Diana explained that this is the reason we saw a much smaller gain, using it as a point of weakness. In reality, she should have explained that this shows the underlying strength in the market – Even though rates rose by 1% in February, we STILL saw an increase of almost 1% in sales! Sales are now down 21% from last year, so there is still more work that needs to be done, but it appears the worst is behind us.