Last week’s housing news

Last week’s housing news did give all of us in the industry a few more things to hang onto. First, we saw new single-family home sales go up 5.7% in September, to a 313,000 annual rate. Next, it was nice to see the supply of new homes drop to 6.2 months. The inventory is now at the lowest level on record.

Then, Case-Shiller’s 20-City Composite Home Price index was up for the fifth month in a row in August and 16 of the 20 metros tracked saw an improvement in their annual rates of change. Case-Shiller called this “a modest glimmer of hope” for the housing market. We’ll take it. Finally, the Pending Home Sales Index dropped a bit in September but was UP 6.4% year over year. This gauges signed contracts on existing homes that are not yet closed.