By Sarah Portlock | The Wall Street Journal
Higher mortgage rates and rising home prices scared off prospective home buyers in September, sparking the fourth straight monthly drop in a key measure of home sales.
The National Association of Realtors’ gauge of pending sales of existing homes fell 5.6% last month from August, the trade group said Monday. That pushed the measure down to its lowest level since December 2012. The 1.2% drop from a year ago marked the first time in more than two years that pending home sales were lower than they were a year earlier.
The Realtors group attributed the drop to rising costs of purchasing a home, as well as budget battles in Congress that hit consumers’ confidence.
