Reflecting significant growth in the West and Midwest, the National Association of Realtors released a report on Thursday showing an unexpected increase in U.S. pending home sales in the month of September.
NAR said its pending home sales index climbed by 0.5 percent to 104.6 in September after tumbling by 1.9 percent to a revised 104.1 in August.
The rebound came as a surprise to economists, who had been expecting pending home sales to edge down by 0.1 percent.
Despite the monthly rebound, pending home sales in September were down by 1.0 percent compared to the same month a year ago, reflecting the ninth straight month of annual decreases.
A pending home sale is one in which a contract was signed but not yet closed. Normally, it takes four to six weeks to close a contracted sale.
Calling the monthly increase a good, stabilizing trend, NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said, "This shows that buyers are out there on the sidelines, waiting to jump in once more inventory becomes available and the price is right."
The unexpected increase came as pending home sales surged up by 4.5 percent in the West and jumped by 1.2 percent in Midwest.
On the other hand, the report said pending home sales in the South slumped by 1.4 percent, while pending sales in the Northeast fell by 0.4 percent.
"The general condition of the economy is excellent, it simply has not lifted home sales this year," Yun said. "Home prices are still rising, so people who are purchasing are still seeing wealth gains."
On Wednesday, the Commerce Department released a separate report showing a steep drop in new home sales in the month of September.
The report said new home sales plunged by 5.5 percent to an annual rate of 553,000 from the revised August rate of 585,000.
Economists had expected new home sales to edge down to a rate of 625,000 from the 629,000 originally reported for the previous month.
With the substantial decrease, new home sales fell to their lowest level since hitting a rate of 546,000 in December of 2016.
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