Last Week: “Housing Recession.” This Week: “At Or Close To The Bottom”

Last Week: “Housing Recession.” This Week: “At Or Close To The Bottom”

In last Thursday's Existing Home Sales press release, the NAR's chief economist said "we're witnessing a housing recession in terms of declining home sales and home building."  Less than a week later, today's Pending Home Sales release contains quite a different remark: "in terms of the current housing cycle, we may be at or close to the bottom in contract signings." How can these two comments coexist in such close proximity?  At first glance, it might seem incongruent, but here's the reality: the housing market is absolutely in a recession in the sense that sales have been receding/declining in a meaningful way for more than 6 months.  Pending Sales peaked last October and Existing Sales peaked in January.  If we want to use "bear market" metrics of 20% contractions, both easily me