Sales of previously owned homes unexpectedly fell in June to touch a seven-month low as cancellations of pending contracts surged, an industry group said on Wednesday.

COMMENTS:

MICHELLE MEYER, SENIOR ECONOMIST, BANK OF AMERICA MERRILL

LYNCH, NEW YORK

It's still pretty clear that there are still a lot of fundamental problems in the housing market. There is too much supply and there is not enough demand. There are a lot of distressed properties which are putting a lot of downward pressure on housing prices.

The housing market is far from normal. We are going to see some signs of improvement in the multi-family sector, but the single family sector is still in a very weak state. There is a long road ahead before we see a well-functioning housing market.

PAUL DALES, SENIOR U.S. ECONOMIST, TORONTO, CANADA

It's a disappointment. What has happened in recent months is housing activity appears to be depressed by unusually bad weather in April and May, which prevents people from going to look at homes and buy them. We were hoping we would get a bounce back but that hasn't appeared to happen, which is a concern.

People may be put off by economic conditions and outlook. The recent slowdown in the economy might be having a more marked impact on the housing demand and that is a concern for the future.

DNR has stated that the cancellation rate of contract signings rose from 4 percent to 16 percent. That is very unusual. Normally when a contract is signed, the house is sold. Something has happened that has led to more cancellations. It may be jitters from the recent economic conditions or because banks may have tightened lending conditions, meaning that the financing a buyer hoped to get was no longer available. We don't know for sure but something seems to have rocked the boat a little bit.

BRIAN DOLAN, CHIEF STRATEGIST, FOREX.COM, BEDMINSTER, NEW JERSEY

This is a look at what's really going on in the housing market and we can see the market is still quite anemic. It's going to be a multi-year process to get out of this.

SEAN INCREMONA, ECONOMIST, 4CAST LTD, NEW YORK:

It came in on the lower side of expectations. There is really nothing new to say about housing, the market continues to be really soft and demand is really definitely lackluster. There are plenty of headwinds facing housing and this continues to suggest that we are bumping along the bottom.

TOM PORCELLI, U.S. ECONOMIST, RBC CAPITAL MARKETS, NEW YORK

It's a disappointment on the face of it, however, as we've continued to highlight, given the supply and demand balance I don't think we should be all that surprised.

On the face of it the number may not be as bad as the headline suggests. The decline came in condos. Single family housing was relatively flat on the month.

A couple of interesting nuggets from within the report: First-time buyers actually slipped to 31 percent to 36 percent. That's interesting because first-time buyers tend to gravitate toward condos. Also, if you look at what prices did, they rose on a month over month basis pretty significantly, and that could because first-time buyers slipped.

We're not expecting all that much from this sector anyway this year.

CARY LEAHEY, ECONOMIST, DECISION ECONOMICS, NEW YORK

It's like a broken record. The good news is bad news. It's steady and it's been steady for five months. But the pace is running well below historical averages. It's disappointing. But the market knows that the housing recovery is going to be extremely slow and they're fixated on the sovereign debt issues. So it won't generate much interest.

VIMOMBI NSHOM, ECONOMIST, IFR ECONOMICS, A UNIT OF THOMSON REUTERS

Sales of previously-owned homes surprised to the downside, falling to an annualized sales rate of 4.77mln homes. This contradicts pending sales figures in last month's report which published the first take on May's numbers -- a moderate recovery of 8.2% after contracts fell 11.3% -- implying these buyers would close the deal in the following month. That report undoubtedly encouraged economists to expect a small rise in closed contracts (market forecast 4.9mln), however the number of cancellations -- buyers that back out of the contract -- shot up to 16% in June compared to the habitual norm of less than 10%. June's numbers reflect a continued slowing in activity that is adding to the slack in the housing market making their promising Spring season unimpressive. In the first half of the selling year, EHS' losses have proven more prevalent than the gains. Not only has EHS' monthly movement shown four declines, the declines are steeper than the gains as we can see since sales have yet to climb back to the 5.4mln sales pace posted in the first month of the year).

Canada