New Jersey Reports a High in Pending Home Sales

New Jersey bucked the national trend of falling pending home sales by recording a high for May 2017.

The National Association of Realtors [NAR] reported that pending home sales fell nationally in May for the third straight month. Even though none of the regions covered by the NAR showed an increase, not all the regions were equally impacted.

The Pending Home Sales Index decreased 0.8% to 108.5 in May from a downwardly revised 109.4 in April 2017.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, believed that the critically low inventory levels throughout the country was having a palpable impact on the index. Yet he expostulated further by saying, “Monthly closings have recently been oscillating back and forth, but this third consecutive decline in contract activity implies a possible topping off in sales.”

He sees this as very possibly a stall in the trend.

This is not the case in New Jersey.

For May 2017, New Jersey’s pending home sales hit a record high: 9,011. This figure is approximately 1,300 more pending sales than were recorded in April. Back in March of 2017, New Jersey recorded 8,335 in pending home sales.

If we compare the numbers being reported for New Jersey, the numbers might be pointing to the ripple effect developing because of its proximity to New York City, where even the five boroughs are becoming middle class resistant.

According to the figures supplied by New Jersey Realtor, pending home sales for single family houses came in at 3,256 back in September 2011 (the furthest back that numbers were supplied). And for comparative purposes, a year later, in September 2012, pending home sales for single family houses were only 3,834.

As the market recovered from the real estate crash of 2008, by May 2015 the number of pending home sales for single family houses had climbed back to 7,073.

And as previously stated, New Jersey’s pending home sales for single family houses hit 9,011.

It seems that for once, New Jersey’s recovery, as documented by the numbers reported by the NJ Realtor site, points to a very healthy real estate market. Hopefully this year the final numbers will bring many of the counties of the Garden State back into range of the levels that it had seen back in 2006.

In the press release published by the National Association of Realtors, it stated, “Existing-home sales are forecast to be around 5.63 million this year, an increase of 3.2% from 2016 (5.45 million). The national median existing-home price this year is expected to increase around 5%. In 2016, existing sales increased 3.8% and prices rose 5.1%.”