The Associated Press reports that pended home sales increased by a surprising 6.7% last month This is news that we've all been waiting for.
The number of U.S. homebuyers who agreed to purchase a previously occupied home in April posted the largest monthly jump in nearly eight years, a sign that sales are finally coming to life after a long and painful slump.
The flip side of the coin is that median home prices decreased, but that's an unfortunate but necessary consequence of the fact that a great deal of these pended sales are steeply discounted foreclosures and fire sales. But the good news is that these properties are selling and that there are people out there willing to buy them. For the longest time, we've been confronted with the iconic images of a suburban Middle-America street lined with for sale signs in front of houses that weren't selling.
Will this momentum be enough to drive the rest of the market?