For The 4th Straight Month, There's An Increase In The Number Of Homes Under Contract

The number of homes under contract to sell increased in May.

It's the fourth straight month in which sales volume increased, corroborating the growing notion that housing is on the mend in most U.S. markets.

Consider these other housing-related stories from the past month:

• Existing Home Sales are rising
• New home supplies are falling
• The Case-Shiller Index is turning positive-like

Put it all together and it looks like the housing market is about to reach its bottom (if it hasn't already).

But just because homes are going under contract to sell doesn't mean that they actually will sell. A "deal" can fall apart for all sorts of reasons including failed home inspections, buyer-seller disputes, and mortgage-related problems.

In general, though, as the number of pending contracts increase, we find that Existing Home Sales rise, too, some 45-60 days into the future. And so long as buyers' demand for homes remains strong, we would expect that home prices edge higher.

It's too soon to say that housing has turned the corner for certain, but there's an awful lot of data lately that suggests that it has.