Despite Chipper Report, No Home Sales Pick-Up Yet
A report from the Greater Hartford Association of Realtors this week that pending sales of single-family homes in the Hartford region have been on the rise for three months straight had me scratching my head.
Why? Well, the number of actual closed sales of single-family homes in Hartford County has declined by double-digit percentages year-over-year for every month in 2009, according to The Warren Group.
The Warren Group’s last report on home sales found that May home sales in Hartford County sank more than 18.6 percent from a year ago. Figures for June are expected later this month.
If pending sales have been increasing for three consecutive months why haven’t closed sales started to creep up or flatten out? That clearly hasn’t happened yet, unless there is some miraculous spike in sales in June.
So what’s going on?
Are willing buyers and sellers coming together and signing purchase and sale agreements only to see the deals fall apart because appraisals are coming up short? That’s one complaint real estate brokers have been sharing over and over. Or are buyers stepping up only to find that lenders are hesitating to provide the financing they promised?
Or is it that real estate agents are pricing properties without taking into full consideration some of the foreclosed homes that are selling and then watching as appraisals come in much lower than the agreed upon price?
Could it be the pending home sales index, which many economists use as a key indicator of future sales, isn’t all that reliable? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I will be watching to see what The Warren Group’s June numbers look like.