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Pending home sales rose for the third month in a row, as more buyers returned to the housing market.
Contract signings in the U.S. rose 2% in October from the previous month, according to the monthly index released Wednesday by the National Association of REALTORS®.
The index is at its highest level since March.
Pending home sales reflect transactions where the contract has been signed for the sale of an existing home, but the sale has not yet closed. Economists view the figure as an indicator of the direction of existing-home sales in subsequent months.
The pending-sales pace exceeded expectations on Wall Street. The median forecast was for an increase of 1.8% in October, based on a survey of economists conducted by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
“Home-buying momentum is building after nearly two years of suppressed home sales,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the NAR, said in a statement.
“Even with mortgage rates modestly rising despite the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut the short-term interbank lending rate in September, continuous job additions and more housing inventory are bringing more consumers to the market,” he added. And “the record-high stock market is providing a boost for upper-end home buyers,” Yun said.