Pending home sales are falling, but the slowdown isn’t hitting every market

Pending home sales are sending a clearer warning about housing demand. Nationally, new pending sales fell to 59,316 for the week ending Sept. 25, down 4.8% from the prior week and 9% from a year ago. At the same time, 42.5% of active listings had taken a price cut, up from 41.6% a year ago. Inventory is moving more slowly. Active inventory increased to 895,398 homes, up 3.8% year over year, while the national median days on market held at 70 days. As HousingWire Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami noted in this week’s Housing Market Tracker, “This is the first real noticeable hit on our weekly demand all year not tied to a holiday.” The question now is whether that weakness persists and, if it does, where it shows up next. Pending sales give us an earlier look at demand than closed sales. Inventory, days on market and seller pricing behavior can then show whether weaker demand is beginning to accumulate elsewhere in the market. One week doesn’t make a trend, and the local data makes another point clear. The national slowdown isn’t showing up the same way everywhere. Provo shows the demand signal first Provo-Orem, Utah, offers one of the clearest examples of weakening demand without a cor...