The under pressure housing market received mixed news in two recently released reports. The sale of the existing houses, which remained pending for a long time, certainly rose by 5% in June. This was the highest raise compared to the previous months, which is an astonishingly encouraging sign. Whereas, the volume of mortgage applications slipped down last week to their weakest level in more than last five months, in the middle of rising credit concern.

According to the Pending Home Sales Index, of residential home contracts in June, the home sales rate was 102.4. This was however 8.6% below than the previous year's counting. However, the National Association of Realtors said June's pending home sales index was the biggest monthly gain in more than three years and that increases were reported all over the country. The Mortgage Bankers Association said, its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications dipped 0.3% in the week ended July 27 to 607.1 - a level just above the 606.6 reading from five months ago.

Average 30-year mortgage rates, exclusive of fees, fell 0.09% in the week to 6.5%, helping to make up loan requests for mortgage refinancing last week. Long-term borrowing costs have misplaced a little during the summer after rising from 6% to 6.25% range in the first four months of the year.

A housing index released recently by Standard & Poor's said home prices cut down for a fifth consecutive month in May, the index's steepest drop in about last 16 years. The S&P/Case-Shiller index that covers 10 U.S. cities fell 3.4% in May from a year earlier in the biggest decline since the summer of 1991. The trade group's index of pending home sales rose to 102.4 in June, up from the figures of 97.5 in May. The Wall Street had been expecting a minor decline, as analysts' surveys, forecast a decline of 0.6% from the original May number of 97.7.

However, some of the trade analysts believe that there is no point in being over optimistic and it is very early to declare if home sales have already crossed the bottom. According to an expert, it will be too early to predict better future of home sales and be optimistic. There are evidences of moderate increase in sales of pending houses. In the midst of falling mortgage and real estate industry scenario, this may seem a bright new opportunity. But, the major declines may occur afterwards, following the accumulating restricted demand.

Since there is a typical period of a month or two when there are huge numbers of buyers looking for good houses all around and when the property changes hands, stocked houses in June are likely to be completed between July and August. However, the report of clearance comes in middle of the flood of negative news about the housing market and troubled mortgage industry. But now, with the little increase in the sale of the stocked houses there are signs that the overheated housing market might finally be cooling.

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