Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Pending Home Sales Report for December showing that home sales slowed with the seasonally adjusted national index dropping 3.5% since November while increasing 5.57% above the level seen in December 2010.Meanwhile, the NARs chief economist Lawrence Yun suggests that the rice in contract activity still remains high compared with the past few years and that homebuyers are persistent even in light of notable contract failures.
"Even with a modest decline, the preceding two months of contract activity are the highest in the past four years outside of the homebuyer tax credit period, ... Contract failures remain an issue, reported by one-third of Realtors® over the past few months, but home buyers are not giving up."
The following chart shows the seasonally adjusted national pending home sales index along with the percent change on a year-over-year basis as well as the percent change from the peak set in 2005 (click for larger version).