US pending home sales for April tumble -6.3% versus -1.0% estimate

• Prior month +6.1% revised to 5.5%
• Pending home sales for April -6.3% versus -1.0% estimate
• pending home sales index 71.3 versus 76.1 (revised from 76.5)
• Sales are down -2.5% year over year
• The 30-year fixed mortgage rate is near 6.98% which is putting a brake on sales

Regionally,

• Northeast -0.6%
• West -8.9%
• Midwest -5%
• South -7.7%

NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun,

“At this critical stage of the housing market, it is all about mortgage rates. Despite an increase in housing inventory, we are not seeing higher home sales. Lower mortgage rates are essential to bring home buyers back into the housing market.”

This article was written by Greg Michalowski at www.forexlive.com.