You've often seen the ads: "Hurry, sale ends tomorrow." A similar pattern occurred in pending home sales. Buyers were in a rush to take advantage of the $8.000 tax credit for first time buyers before the program ended in October. In October the National Association of Realtors Pending Home Sales Index stood at 114.3

The temporary end to the tax credit program created a vacuum. The Pending Home Sales Index fell to 96, for a drop of 16%. Nevertheless, the index was 15.5% higher than November 2008.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that housing starts rose a bit in September, helped by a rise in single-family home construction, but this bit of good news came with some bad news that applications for new home construction were down in the month.

According to the report, construction of new homes and apartments rose by 0.5% in the month, to an annualized rate of 590,000 units. While any growth for housing starts comes as good news in the current market, it is not as good as it appears at first glance, considering that analysts had been expecting to see the annualized rate increase to 610,000 units.