IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Pending home sales in California were down in April, the result of low inventory and declining affordability, according to data released Wednesday.
The state’s pending home sales index was down 7.4 percent year-over-year, to 113.7, the Los Angeles-based California Association of Realtors reported.
That was the fourth consecutive month that pending sales were down compared with the previous year, It was also the largest year-over-year drop since July 2014, when pending sales were down 9.1 percent.
In the Inland Empire, pending sales last month were down four percent in San Bernardino but were up two percent in Riverside County.
A pending home sale means a contract has been signed but the sale hasn’t closed. Pending sales are considered an accurate gauge of the housing market’s immediate future.
The statewide decline was not entirely a surprise.
Realtors who responded to the association’s April Market Pulse Survey reported less traffic at open houses, fewer multiple offers on properties, more cuts in prices and not as many appointments compared with March.
Forty eight percent of the realtors surveyed said they were most concerned about not enough homes being available for purchase, the highest that “low inventory” has ever ranked in the survey. Nearly 20 percent said they were most concerned with high prices and a possible housing bubble, according to the survey.
