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United States Pending Home Sales

Last Release

Oct 2021

Actual

-1.4 %

Forecast

-3 %

-8.2 %

Frequency

Monthly

Units In

Next Release

Jan 27, 2022

Time to Release

8 Days 18 Hours

Highest	Lowest	Average	Date Range	Source
51.7 % Apr 2021	-33.8 % Apr 2020	1.38 %	2002 - 2021	National Association of Realtors

The Pending Home Sales Index, a leading indicator of housing activity, measures housing contract activity, and is based on signed real estate contracts for existing single-family homes, condos and co-ops. When a seller accepts a sales contract on a property, it is recorded into a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) as a "pending home sale." The majority of pending home sales become home sale transactions, typically one to two months later. The National Association of Realtors collects pending home sales data from MLSs and large brokers. Altogether, data from over 100 MLSs & 60 large brokers is received providing a large sample size covering 50% of the existing home sales sample. This is equal to 20 percent of all transactions.

Latest Updates

The number of signed contracts to buy existing homes in the US were down 2.3% in September, partially reversing from an 8.1% surge in August and much worse than market forecasts of a flat reading. “Contract transactions slowed a bit in September and are showing signs of a calmer home price trend, as the market is running comfortably ahead of pre-pandemic activity. It’s worth noting that there will be less inventory until the end of the year compared to the summer months, which happens nearly every year. Some potential buyers have momentarily paused their home search with intentions to resume in 2022", said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. Sales fell in the Northeast (-3.2%), the Midwest (-3.5%), the South (-1.8%) and the West (-1.4%).