Pending Home Sales Rose 1.5% in September

Washington, DC, October 27, 2016—The Pending Home Sales Index grew 1.5% to 110.0 in September from a slight downward revision of 108.4 in August, according to the National Association of Realtors.

With last month's gain, the index is now 2.4% higher than last September (107.4) and has now risen year-over-year for 22 of the last 25 months.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says a robust increase in the West and a healthy bump in the South pushed pending sales upward in September. "Buyer demand is holding up impressively well this fall with Realtors reporting much stronger foot traffic compared to a year ago," he said. "Although depressed inventory levels are keeping home prices elevated in most of the country, steady job gains and growing evidence that wages are finally starting to tick up are encouraging more households to consider buying a home."

In last week's report on September existing-home sales, according to Yun, there are many positive indicators showing that the housing market's overall health continues to improve as we near the end of 2016. In addition to sales matching their third highest pace (5.47 million) since February 2007 (5.79 million), distressed sales fell to their lowest share since NAR began tracking them in October 2008 (4%). Furthermore, sales to first-time buyers reached 34%, which matched the highest share since July 2012 and was up convincingly from September 2015 (29%).