With severe winter weather inhibiting home shopping across much of the U.S., the National Association of Realtors released a report on Thursday showing a sharp drop in pending home sales in the month of December.
NAR said its pending home sales index tumbled 8.7 percent to 92.4 in December from a downwardly revised 101.2 in November. Economists had been expecting the index to edge down by 0.5 percent.
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.
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