After a slow start this year, partly due to the frigidly cold winter, home sales are picking up steam. Existing-home sales have risen for four straight months and in July were at the highest pace of the year, 5.15 million. Pending contracts point to more gains, too.
Jobs are always important for home sales, and in the last 12 months they’ve grown by 2.6 million. North Dakota, Texas, Utah, and parts of California are good examples of job growth leading to healthy real estate activity. Amazingly, mortgage rates refuse to rise, even after the Federal Reserve has started talking about tightening its monetary policy, keeping the recovery intact.
