Remember a couple months ago when I sent out a newsletter saying the market was REALLY busy? Well, the latest report from the National Association of Realtors says that pending sales of existing homes, or contracts signed but not closed, rose 6.7% in April. April’s pending sales were up 3.2 percent from a year ago, the NAR said.

     The biggest increase in April was in the Northeast, where pending sales jumped 32.6 percent from the previous month. The NAR’s pending home sales index is a forward-looking gauge, and the group cautions that it is more volatile than actual closed sales. “The relationship between contracts on pending home sales and closings on existing home sales is taking longer than in the past for several reasons,” NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said. “Mortgage processing time has increased, it is taking many months to close on those homes requiring short sales with lender approval, and some sales are falling through at the last moment.” Still, Yun says he believes the housing market has already bottomed out in some areas.