The roller coaster that is the real estate market is on the upswing. Don’t think this is the Kingda Ka type of upswing but more like the Teeny Weeny type.

The Pending Home Sales Index from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) rose a paltry 0.1% during the month of May. A more impressive comparison was year-over-year where the index showed a 6.7% increase compared with May 2008. This was the first four-month percentage increase since way back in October of 2004. That is a mighty long time if you ask me.

Industry gurus had predicted that there would be zero growth in the index for the month of May, based on the fact that there was a sizable increase of 6.7% in April. But we have to remember that this is the Pending Home Sales Index and not the Closed Home Sales Index and not all of these homes are going to go all the way through escrow.

“Closed existing-home sales have improved but are coming in lower than expected because some contracts are delayed or falling through from the application of new appraisal rules for many transactions,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for NAR.

If you look at the historical data, home sales are still off considerably from the peak years of 2005 and 2006 when there was about one third more transaction than are taking place today.

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(Kingda Ka Photo via Flickr by Dusso Janladde and Teeny-Weeny Photo via Flickr by Nemesis Storm)
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