US pending home sales fall to record low as mortgage rates climb

The record-low reading matters less as a housing datapoint than as evidence that the mortgage-rate shock tied to the Iran war is now biting at the contract stage, not just in sentiment surveys, and that the weakness is broad rather than regional. The effect lands on existing-home sellers, realtors and the transaction-dependent parts of the housing economy, while sidelined buyers wait on financing costs. Whether rates keep climbing toward those three-year highs, and whether signed contracts convert into closings at all, is the open question worth tracking.