The good news is, a marquee measure of US pending home sales no longer sits at a record low.

The bad news is, Thursday’s update found that gauge parked at its second-lowest level on record.

Suffice to say “improvement” remains a highly relative term when it comes to the resale market for US homes.

The NAR’s measure of national contract signings ticked up by 0.6% in August from an unrevised all-time nadir the prior month. Consensus expected a 0.4% advance. (It’s a “beat”!)

As the figure shows, the marginal increase was where the good news stopped.

The figures were for last month, and rates have obviously moved quite a bit lower since then, but the irony of the relentless drop in mortgage rates is that it’s conditioned would-be buyers to expect even lower financing costs, and those expectations may be holding back sales.

Or maybe not. Because according to Redfin — which produces more timely data — rate locks rose 68% MoM in the days following last week’s Fed cut. “News about last week’s interest-rate cut is starting to bring homebuyers back,” Dana Anderson said Thursday.

“News” indeed. In fact: “NEWS!” The email copied below comes courtesy of a reader in the Midwest, who apparently received it from a broker last week, emojis and all:

God bless ’em. It’s safe to say whoever that is is in the “hoping for 50 on November 7” camp, even if he or she doesn’t know it.

Redfin has a “Homebuyer Demand Index” which tracks house tours. Anderson on Thursday said it “shot up to its highest level since May” last week.

The NAR’s Lawrence Yun sounded less-than-excited on Thursday about the pending home sales figures. He described a “slight upward turn reflect[ing] a modest improvement in housing affordability.” Lower rates are saving Americans around $300/month on the typical mortgage, according to the NAR.

Considering that the median national income is some $30,000 below the level needed to comfortably afford the typical house in America, it’s probably fair to assess that either i) rates need to move lower still in order to make the math actually work for regular people, or ii) buyers are going to spend considerably more than 30% of their income on housing payments.

That is, of course, unless you believe the median national income will rise to $115,000 right quick, or that homes will get suddenly cheaper. (Neither of those two things are going to happen.)