Pending home sales rose 8.2% to a reading of 97.6 in February, far exceeding economists’ estimates and a positive sign for the housing market heading into the spring season, the National Association of Realtors reported Monday.
The rise in pending sales “may signal the early stages of a second surge of home sales this spring,” Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist, said in a press release.
The pending sales figure for January was revised lower to 90.2 from the 90.4 reported last month.
Economists were expecting February’s reading on pending home sales to decline to 90.2, according to the median estimate from Thomson Reuters.
“Anecdotally, we’re hearing about a rise of activity in recent weeks with ongoing reports of multiple offers in more markets, so the March data could demonstrate additional improvement from buyers responding to the tax credit,” Yun said, referring to the homebuyer tax credit that Congress last year extended through June 2010.
Pending sales figures reflect contracts and not closings, which usually occur with a lag time of one to two months. Sales of existing homes fell 0.6% February to 5.02 million sales at an annual rate and fell 7.2% in January. New home sales for February fell 2.2% to a record low in February.
