Having dropped 3.9 percent in April to a near decade low, the National Association of Realtors Pending Home Sales Index, a seasonally adjusted index for which 100 denotes “an average level” of activity, inched back up 0.7 percent in May to 99.9 but was down 13.6 percent on a year-over-year basis.
In the words of NAR’s Chief Economist, “[d]espite the small gain in pending sales from the prior month, the housing market is clearly undergoing a transition,” a “transition” that shouldn’t have caught any plugged-in readers by surprise.
Closer to home, pending sales activity in San Francisco proper has been down an average of over 20 percent over the past month despite a marked increase in inventory.