Surprise, surprise: Contract signings in America’s otherwise frozen resale property market posted another outsized advance in November, data released on Monday showed.

On the heels of similarly upbeat outcomes in October and August, the NAR’s gauge of pending home sales rose 3.3% last month, pushing the index to its best level since February of 2023.

Consensus expected a much smaller gain for November. Indeed, the upturn quadrupled the average forecast.

As the figure above shows, this leading indicator’s evidencing real signs of life after languishing near record lows for the better part of a year.

“Homebuyer momentum is building,” NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said Monday. “Improving housing affordability is helping buyers test the market [while] more inventory choices are also attracting more buyers.”

Caveats are in order. (Sometimes I feel like that’s my unofficial “job”: Caveat machine for macro indicators.) “Improving” affordability isn’t the same thing as affordable. There’s nothing “affordable” about homes in America, nor in any other advanced economy for that matter.

That said, Yun’s correct to note that annual wage growth’s outstripping home prices, as is overall headline inflation. The latter’s bad news for homeowners to the extent their most important asset’s appreciating at a rate that’s less than half of overall price growth. But the former’s helpful for renters, most of whom derive the lion’s share of their income from wage work.

The figure above illustrates Yun’s point. Wages for non-managers are rising much quicker than home prices.

The issue — and I alluded to this with the chart header — is that everyday workers are trying to catch a train that was traveling very fast during the pandemic housing boom. It’s going to be a while before they make up lost ground.

As for mortgage rates, I continue to believe it’ll take a five-handle 30-year fixed to thaw the market.