Contract signings on existing homes edged higher in August, but the gain was modest enough that the housing market remains well behind where it stood a year earlier. The National Association of Realtors reported an index reading that inched up on the month while still running sharply below last August’s pace, a split that describes a market moving in small steps rather than a real turnaround. For anyone counting on a home sale to fund retirement, refinance a fixed budget, or downsize into something smaller, the pace of that movement matters as much as the direction.
A Third Consecutive Monthly Gain, Still Down From A Year Ago
NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index rose 0.3% in August to a reading of 71.2, but that level sits 4.7% below where the index stood in August of last year, according to the National Association of Realtors’ September 17 report. The index tracks signed contracts on existing homes, which typically close within one to two months, so August’s reading is an early signal for how many transactions will actually record in September and October. A monthly uptick of three-tenths of a percent is a small move in either direction, and it does not offset a year-over-year drop nearly sixteen times that size.
NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said buyers “steadily entered into contracts in August even though mortgage rates increased,” but that “the housing market is still sluggish.” Yun added that contract signings are running roughly 30% below pre-pandemic levels, a comparison point that puts August’s small monthly gain in a longer context: even a market that ticks upward month to month can still be historically slow.
Inside the kit: A pending-sales report that moves 0.3% in a month doesn’t tell an owner what a slower closing pace does to next year’s property tax bill or a stalled repair project sitting on a listing checklist — that’s a separate lookup the five kinds of property-tax relief and the application log inside the kit are built to organize. See the relief programs in The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit.
The West Fell Furthest Behind Last Year
Regional detail in the same NAR release shows the West posting the steepest year-over-year decline of any region, down 6.7% from August of last year even as its index rose 3.0% on the month, per the NAR report. The South’s index climbed 2.3% month over month to 86.2 but was still 3.8% below last year, while the Midwest fell 1.6% on the month and 4.9% on the year, and the Northeast dropped 4.2% on the month and 3.9% on the year. Every region NAR tracks logged a year-over-year decline in August, which means the national 4.7% figure is not being pulled down by one outlier market.
Five Metro Areas Bucked The National Decline
Beneath the national 4.7% year-over-year drop, NAR’s release also lists the metro areas where pending sales actually grew fastest from a year earlier: Richmond, Virginia led with an 11.3% year-over-year gain, followed by San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas at 6.6%, Memphis, Tennessee-Mississippi-Arkansas at 6.4%, Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, Virginia-North Carolina at 5.1%, and Cincinnati, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana at 4.7%, according to the same NAR report. Those five metro-level gains show that the national decline, while broad across NAR’s four Census regions, was not universal at the local level, and a household weighing a move toward one of these markets is looking at contract activity running in the opposite direction of the headline national figure.
The gap between a market like Richmond, up double digits year over year, and the national figure, down 4.7%, illustrates how much local conditions can diverge from month to month even within the same NAR release. For an older household comparing a current metro against a possible retirement destination, the metro-level pending sales trend is a more relevant gauge of how quickly a local housing market is moving than the national index alone, since a seller in a fast-recovering metro faces a meaningfully different negotiating position than one in a market still working through last year’s steeper declines.
Why A Signed Contract Isn’t A Closed Sale
The pending index counts contracts that are signed but not yet closed, which is a distinction that matters for anyone reading the monthly figure as a snapshot of completed transactions. A contract can still fall through over financing, an inspection, or an appraisal gap before it reaches closing, so August’s 0.3% gain describes intent to transact rather than money that has already changed hands. For an older seller weighing whether to list now or wait, the lag between signing and closing, typically one to two months on a conventional loan, is the practical reason the pending index is watched as a leading indicator rather than a final tally.
Mortgage Rates Are Still Shaping The Pace
Yun’s own comment ties August’s contract activity directly to financing cost, noting buyers signed contracts even as mortgage rates rose during the month, per the same NAR release. That combination, a small increase in signed contracts alongside higher borrowing costs, suggests some buyers are moving ahead despite the rate environment rather than because of it. For a household on a fixed income evaluating a move, the monthly payment on a new mortgage is shaped as much by the rate locked in at contract signing as by the sale price itself, which is part of why NAR frames the pending index alongside financing conditions rather than sale prices alone.
What A Slow Contract Pace Means Once A Home Sells
NAR’s August pending sales index rose 0.3% but stayed 4.7% below last year, a gap that leaves a seller’s timeline and a buyer’s closing costs both harder to predict than the headline number suggests. Neither figure says anything about what happens to property taxes, heating costs or a home-repair bill on the other side of a sale that finally closes, which is the practical gap a household is left to sort out alone.
The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit lays out the 5 kinds of property-tax relief and the circuit-breaker credit that includes renters, giving a buyer or seller a way to check what changes once a transaction closes.
See how the circuit-breaker credit applies after a sale closes in The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit.
This article was produced with AI assistance and checked against the primary sources linked above.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
