{"id":486585,"date":"2026-02-20T01:47:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/486585\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T01:47:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:47:13","slug":"pending-home-sales-drop-to-record-low-in-the-data-from-already-low-levels-on-big-drops-in-the-south-midwest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/486585\/","title":{"rendered":"Pending Home Sales Drop to Record Low in the Data, from Already Low Levels, on Big Drops in the South & Midwest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t \u201cImproving affordability conditions have yet to induce more buying activity\u201d: National Association of Realtors.
\nBy\u00a0Wolf Richter<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0WOLF STREET<\/a>.<\/p>\n

January was bad, following the plunge in December. And prior months were revised lower. Pending home sales, tracking the number of contracts signed in January, declined by 0.8% seasonally adjusted from the downwardly revised December, to the lowest level on record in the data by the National Association of Realtors, which goes back to mid-2010. Compared to January 2011, during the Housing Bust and the first January in the data series, pending sales were down by 20%.<\/p>\n

\u201cImproving affordability conditions have yet to induce more buying activity,\u201d the NAR stated.<\/p>\n

Pending home sales compared to the Januarys in prior years (historic data via\u00a0YCharts<\/a>):<\/p>\n

2025: -0.8% (year-over-year)
\n2024: -4.8%
\n2023: -13.0%
\n2022: -35.2%
\n2021:\u00a0-41.4%
\n2020:\u00a0-34.8%
\n2019:\u00a0-31.1%
\n2018: -32.9%.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Pending sales dropped sharply in the South and in the Northeast but rose in the West and Midwest on a month-to-month basis, seasonally adjusted, see charts further below. This comes after the drop in December in all four regions.<\/p>\n

The metric of pending sales tracks contracts that were signed in January but that haven\u2019t closed yet and could still get canceled because buyers cannot afford homeowner\u2019s insurance, or cannot sell their own home, or for other reasons. The rate of cancellations has been running high.<\/p>\n

Pending home sales by region.<\/p>\n

A map of the four Census Regions is posted in the comments below.<\/p>\n

In the South,\u00a0pending sales fell by 4.5% in January from December, seasonally adjusted, following the drop in December.<\/p>\n

Compared to the Januarys of prior years:<\/p>\n

2025: +4.0% (year-over-year)
\n2024: -3.9%
\n2023: -12.2%
\n2022: -35.9%
\n2021:\u00a0-42.1%
\n2019:\u00a0-29.4%.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the Northeast,\u00a0pending sales dropped by 5.7%\u00a0month-to-month, to the second-worst level of sales on record.<\/p>\n

Compared to the Januarys of prior years:<\/p>\n

2025: -8.3% (year-over-year)
\n2024: -8.6%
\n2023: -13.5%
\n2022: -31.0%
\n2021:\u00a0-42.5%
\n2019:\u00a0-37.3%.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the Midwest,\u00a0pending sales rose by 5.0% in January from December, seasonally adjusted, to the third-lowest level on record, after the 12.7% plunge in December to a record low in the data going back to mid-2010.<\/p>\n

Compared to the Januarys of prior years:<\/p>\n

2025: -3.3% (year-over-year)
\n2024: -5.1%
\n2023: -14.9%
\n2022: -33.1%
\n2021:\u00a0-36.0%
\n2019:\u00a0-29.3%.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the West,\u00a0pending sales rose by 4.3% in January from December after the 10.6% plunge in December, seasonally adjusted.<\/p>\n

Compared to the Januarys of prior years:<\/p>\n

2025: +0.3% (year-over-year)
\n2024: -4.0%
\n2023: -11.9%
\n2022: -39.1%
\n2021:\u00a0-45.1%
\n2019: -33.5%.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The cause of the housing market being this frozen and refusing to thaw is related to the ultra-low mortgage rates of 2020-2022 that ended up exploding home prices to where they\u2019re too high now; and then when those ultra-low mortgage rates went away, they \u201clocked in\u201d homeowners that had those ultra-low mortgage rates who now cannot afford to move or don\u2019t want to move because it\u2019s not worth the extra monthly expense.<\/p>\n

A substantial segment of the housing market \u2013 people moving and putting their home on the market and buying another home \u2013 has been frozen in this way for a fourth year now. Part of the plunge in sales compared to the years before the pandemic is related to this effect, with these people, as buyers and sellers, having vanished from the market.<\/p>\n

The unwinding of the ultra-low mortgage rates is occurring, but very slowly, and the lock-in effect is gradually loosening: \u201cLocked-in\u201d Homeowners Nevertheless Pay Off Below-4% Mortgages: their Share Drops to Lowest since Q4 2020<\/a>].<\/p>\n

In case you missed it: Single-Family & Multifamily Construction: Bring on the Supply just as Population Growth Slows to a Crawl<\/a><\/p>\n

Enjoy reading WOLF STREET and want to support it? You can donate. I appreciate it immensely. Click on the mug to find out how:<\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

WOLF STREET FEATURE: Daily Market Insights by Chris Vermeulen, Chief Investment Officer, TheTechnicalTraders.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cImproving affordability conditions have yet to induce more buying activity\u201d: National Association of Realtors. By\u00a0Wolf Richter\u00a0for\u00a0WOLF STREET. January…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-486585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}