Pending Homes Sales Index Down 5.1% in the West

Today the National Association of REALTORS released it's Pending Home Sales Index figures. The West was down 5.1% over last month and down 4.6% over last year. This new PHSI index is a leading indicator of the existing home sale figures that will come out next month, so we should be able to directly see the impact on those numbers (i.e. should be lower again). I suspect some of the impact is from the recent increase in mortgage rates.