Understanding the Pending Home Sales Index
The National Association of Realtors measures the number of pending homes nationwide on a monthly basis. They do this by tracking when there is a status change from an active listing to a pending sale via the Multiple Listing Service. This is called the Pending Home Sales Index.
The real estate industry views the index as a sign of future home sales. They do this with the assumption that 80% of all homes pending will close within 2 months and the remainder will close with 4 months.
The index is intended to predict home sales but it may not be it’s best use for several reasons. 1. It doesn’t track FSBO sales 2. It samples only 20% of all the MLS transactions 3. it doesn’t take into consideration new construction.
In addition, in a tough mortgage climate such as the one we’re in now, a greater percentage of pending sales will fail to close at all because of lack of financing.The Pending Home Sales Index still has its place, however — it’s a terrific look at the buy-side demand for homes.
The Pending Home Sales Index is an excellent way to view the overall markets strength. When the PHSI is moving up we know that there are more buyers in the market for homes and typically with more demand comes higher prices.
In June — for the second time in three months — the Pending Home Sales Index posted a large gain even as economists were calling for a loss. The inference here is that buyers are not only finding good value in all four regions of the country, but are willing to make bids on homes listed for sale.
Again, this does not show us exactly how many of these transactions have closed. We only know from this data that the market demand is increasing since more buyers are putting houses under contract. And typically when buyer demand is increasing then we can assume the real estate market will not be far bhind.