Most banks have now pushed back their forecasts for interest rate hikes - possibly into 2012. Perhaps a good thing for sales numbers in the short term. Early August numbers show pending sales numbers continue to slide closer to the 2010 numbers. We're now down to 260 - graph below hasn't been updated yet and it should bounce back a bit with the weekly trends:
Year to date, 2011 is sitting 7% higher than last year and Mike F's stats show this is tracking to be about the 2nd worst in a decade. Hardly the end of the world though (and the stock market is way more interesting right now too!) It will be interesting to see how interest rate hikes will affect things down the road though.