Pending Home Sales: August 2011

Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Pending Home Sales Report for August showing home sales declined with the seasonally adjusted national index dropping 1.2% since July but increasing 7.7% above the level seen in August 2010.

Meanwhile, the NARs chief economist Lawrence Yun suggests that the weather played a part regionally while acknowledging that sales have been soft overall.

"The biggest monthly decline was in the Northeast, which was significantly disrupted by Hurricane Irene in the closing weekend of August ... But broadly speaking, contract signing activity has been holding in a narrow range for many months."

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).