Pending home sales slip in January

The National Association of Realtors just released pending home sales figures for January. Sales slumped 2.8%, slightly worse than the 2.3% decline that was expected. December's change was revised to a loss of 3.2% from a previously reported 2% gain. The weakness was fairly widespread geographically, with declines of 1.8% in the Northeast, 5.4% in the West, and 6.1% in the Midwest. Sales rose 1.3% in the South. The index level of 88.9 was the lowest since October (85.5).