|  TIGHTER LENDING STANDARDS CONTINUE TO IMPACT HOUSING ACTIVITY
Home sales should remain stable in the months ahead, despite a lack of buyer confidence and the continued impact of tighter lending criteria, NAR today reported. The Association's Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a forward-looking indicator that gauges home sales activity for upcoming months, declined for the third consecutive month in May, falling 13.3 percent from a year ago to a reading of 97.9. A PHSI of 100 is equal to the average contract level in 2001, the first of five consecutive years of record home sales.
"Better supervised lending will put housing in a fundamentally healthier state of the long term," said NAR Senior Economist Lawrence Yun. "Mortgage purchase applications are trending up, with some of the rise due to buyers reapplying for alternatives to subprime financing. Nonetheless, home sales should stay close to present levels in the months ahead given an accumulating pent-up demand."
While the West and Northeast regions both saw modest increases on a month-to-month basis, the PHSI declined across the nation in May compared with the readings a year ago. On a regional basis, the PHSI dropped 15.4 percent to 107.2 in the South; 13.7 percent to 95.4 in the West; 9.6 percent to 93.1 in the Northeast; and 11.7 percent to 89.4 in the Midwest.
| 
|
No comments:
Post a Comment