the numbers us pendinghome sales rose in may by 07 according to the monthly index released by the national association of realtors said monday analysts polled by the wall street journal had forecast the pending home sales index to drop by 4 this increase breaks a sixmonth decline and comes as mortgage rates continue to rise key details compared with a year earlier transactions were down 136 regionally the index jumped the most in northeast and fell in the midwest and west big picture the rise is not likely to change economists’ grim forecast for the housing market the index reflects transactions where the contract has been signed for an existinghome sale but the sale has not yet closed economists view it as an indicator for the direction of existinghome sales in subsequent months what the nar said “despite the small gain in pending sales from the prior month the housing market is clearly undergoing a transition” nar chief economist lawrence yun said “contract signings are down sizably from a year ago because of much higher mortgage rates” market reaction the dow jones industrial average djia and the sp 500 spx were both slightly lower in early trading on monday the yield on the 10year treasury note tmubmusd10y rose slightly to 318