February’s pending existing home sales reversed a five-month decline and pointed to what’s shaping up as an extremely competitive, slow-growing spring home buying and selling season.  

Sellers approved 726 contracts last month. That’s 42 more than January and one more than February last year.  

Pending sales are a leading indicator of housing activity based on signed contracts for existing single-family homes and condominium sales in the region monitored by the Northeast Tennessee Association of Realtors (NETAR) Home Sales Report. Since resales go under contract 30 to 60 days before they close, accepted contracts offer insight into the direction home sales will take.      

   

“Concerns over the war in Europe, higher home prices, low inventory and increasing mortgage rates are causing some consumers to back-off. But there are still active buyers out there,” NETAR President Rick Chantry said. Increasing mortgage rates always move the market, he added.  

“February’s slight sales decline became a slight increase (1.2%) with the mid-month update for the pending sales report,” Chantry said. That’s because the mid-month update captures February closings that were not processed by the first of the month. 

There were 792 active listings on Feb. 15. At the current sales pace, that’s a little less than one month’s inventory. Some of the city markets, and the condo market, have less than a month’s inventory.  

The typical home that closed last month was on the market for 58 days before the sale closed. That’s an increase of two days from January. The time on the market has been slowly increasing since June last year. When homes spend more time on the market, it signals demand is softening.