by Calculated Risk on 4/03/2006 11:27:00 AM

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Pending Home Sales Index today: Pending Home Sales Leveling Out, Market Balancing

The Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed in February, slipped 0.8 percent to a level of 117.7 from an upwardly revised index of 118.6 in January, and is 5.2 percent below February 2005.

The purpose of this index was to provide more timely data similar to New Home Sales. The index is reported when the contract is signed, as opposed to when escrow closes (as for Existing Home Sales). I haven't found the Index useful, except apparently as a marketing tool for NAR.

David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said most of the cooling in the housing market has already occurred. "We can expect a historically strong housing market moving forward, earmarked by generally balanced conditions across the country and fairly stable levels of home sales with some month-to-month fluctuations," he said. "This normalization is healthy because it is taking a lot of the pressure off of the decision process for both home buyers and sellers – pressure that was driving abnormal rates of price growth across much of the country over the last few years."