Given the way that the Wall Street Journal and its biggest client, the National Association of Realtors, keep you in the dark and feed you manure, they must think you are a mushroom. They did it last week with the “existing home sales” and have done it again this week with the “pending home sales” release. Pending home sales were down, not up in May, as the report said.
Here’s why the WSJ may not be interested in allowing you to see the light of day. Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal is the PR affiliate of his Move, Inc. which operates websites and mobile products for the NAR. The NAR is the monolithic, monopolistic US housing marketing cartel that controls the market, spending billions to disseminate its propaganda to the public, and to manipulate Congress. The incestuous relationship between the NAR and Rupert Murdoch’s organs prevents any possibility of fair and balanced reporting of the news when it comes to housing (or virtually anything else around which Murdoch has his power mongering propaganda tentacles).
“Pending home sales” are contracts, reported at the time the contract was signed by both buyer and seller. “existing home sales” are the closings (aka “settlements” in some states), when the deeds are transferred. The contract is when the actual, real-time meeting of the minds takes place. This is far more timely market data than the data on closings.
The closing is the official transfer of the deed, which usually occurs 30-60 days after the date of the contract. This data is then delayed in recording and reporting by another 30 days or so. By the time the media reports “existing home sales” the data is stale. Case Shiller compounds the problem by using a 3 month average, causing another 6 weeks of lag.
The Wall Street Journal’s headline was true.
U.S. Pending Home Sales at Highest Level in Nine Years
But this isn’t news. Sales have been at their highest levels in 9 years since February, if we exclude 2010 when tax credits goosed the market artificially. Note that February is when mortgage rates hit their lowest levels since 2012. Since then they have ratcheted higher.
