Pending home sales decline in February
Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Pending Home Sales Report for February showing that pending home sales declined with the seasonally adjusted national index dropping 0.4% from January but increasing 8.4% above the level seen in February 2012.
Meanwhile, the NARs chief economist Lawrence Yun suggests that new home inventory is needed in order to relieve the current "shortage" :
"Only new home construction can genuinely help relieve the inventory shortage, and housing starts need to rise at least 50 percent from current levels, ... Most local home builders are small businesses and simply don't have access to capital on Wall Street. Clearer regulatory rules, applied to construction loans for smaller community banks and credit unions, could bring many small-sized builders back into the market."
