Pending home sales in August rise 4% from July as mortgage rates drop

Pending home sales in August rose 4% from July and were 3.8% higher year-over-year. That is a strong beat. The street was looking for flat.This count is based on signed contracts. So, it's a forward-looking indicator of closed sales in September and October. Now, mortgage rates in August when people were out signing these deals were slightly lower than they were in July, but not as low as they are right now.Last week, we saw a huge jump in sales of newly built homes, which are also measured by signed contra ...