As mentioned yesterday, July 2014 home sales hit an 82-month high, likely due in part to the large number of properties that went under contract in June 2014.

Despite this high number of July 2014 home sales, the year-to-date figures still have 2013 home sales slightly ahead of this year....

• Jan 2013 - Jul 2013 Home Sales = 587
   
  
• Jan 2014 - Jul 2014 Home Sales = 564  (-4%)
  

Seeing that closed sales were slightly behind (-4%) last year, but having seen a record number of sales in July 2014, and a high number of contracts in June 2014, I thought it would be worthwhile to examine year-to-date figures as to the number of contracts that have been signed by buyers (and sellers)....

• Jan 2013 - Jul 2013 Contracts = 745
   
  
• Jan 2014 - Jul 2014 Contracts = 733  (-2%)

So, what can we conclude here?

• Closing the 4% deficit in closed sales is not guaranteed, given that we're seeing a 2% deficit in signed contracts.
   
• In order to close the gap on closed sales, we'll need to see several more months of strong contract figures. 
  

Stay tuned for my monthly market report next month where we'll (hopefully, probably, possibly) see that we have closed the gap in sales pace.