Spring Uptick For Housing Market

Spring always brings warm weather, sunshine and an upbeat attitude. The home market started off slow for the beginning of 2019, but analyst believe there will be a rise in home sales Spring 2019.

The beginning of the year wasn’t what the National Association of Realtors hoped for. Pending home sales did jump 4.6% this January, however sales were 2.3% lower than a year ago. January marked the 13th straight month of year-over-year declines.

The pending home-sales index (the NAR’s tracking system that records home contract signings) did go up in January to 103.2.  Analysts believe the reopening of the partial government shutdown caused the boost from the nearly five-year low it saw in December of 2018. In the Northeast pending sales increased 1.6%, in the Midwest 2.8%, only 0.3% in the West and 8.9% in the South. The market should see the home sales from these pending contracts right around Springtime. Contracts usually stay pending on average for about 45 days until they close.

“February existing home sales should now rebound handily and with new home sales likely to head higher too, given the rising trend in mortgage demand, the gloomy housing narrative in markets and the media is set to change quite dramatically over the next few months. The market is not rolling over, and it is not a harbinger of recession in the broader economy,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Macro.

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