After a small jump start of 5.8% in June, pending homes sales have fallen 3.2%, hitting the Pending Home Sales Index (a measure of potential home sales based on the amount of contracts signed per month) at 86.5. This figure is 6.7% below the record for last July, which was 92.8.

Michael Larson, a real estate analyst at Weiss Research, remarked that "This is more evidence that the housing market is still in a malaise,". NAR head economist, Lawrence Yun, attributed this fall to the stricter regulations that have recently been implemented by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Buyers are not able to get loans as quickly or at all.

At least, according to Richard DeKaser, a chief economist at National City Corp, it appears that the index has begun to level out, so hopefully the lowest level in home sales has been reached and now things could start to stabilize. Larson also remarked that new interest is being seen in areas where home prices had particularly dropped, "We have seen sales pick up in some areas where homes are being basically liquidated for just about any price the sellers can get,".

Maybe these new developments could help pick up future home sells, although according to a S&P/Case-Shriller report, home prices fell 15.4% during a 12 month period that ended on June 30th and buying did not drastically increase. DeKaser again attributed this to the new lending stands, the price of the home may be great, but "Lending standards had gotten increasingly tight." One salvation with this, is that the government take over of Fannie and Freddie has helped to lower interest rates. Larson remarked that, "We want to see if the mortgage rate decline stands...That would help to stabilize things." Based on data complied by Bankrate.com, mortgage rates have already fallen from 6.26% to 5.88% in just a week´s time.