Noise.
There's an awful lot of it in today's report on September existing home salesfrom the National Association of Realtors.
Even the markets could hear the noise, as they didn't react all that much to the 10 percent jump in sales that completely beat expectations.
Yes, it was the biggest monthly gain in 28 years, but it was also the third worst sales month on record. This was thanks to the historic plunge in home sales in July, after what we first thought was the closing deadline for the home buyer tax credit.
September's data still has government stimulus in it, as it's showing the final closings from the tax credit. Thirty-two percent of home buyers in September were first timers and a whopping 29% paid in cash, which really gives you an idea of where the mortgage market is today. Sales were still 19 percent below September of 2009 levels, so that tempers the big gain as well. The median sales price also fell 2.4 percent year over year and is the lowest reading since March.