Pending sales of existing homes in February declined 1.9 percent to 84.6 from an upwardly revised reading of 86.2 in January, a 21.4 percent drop from the February 2007 index of 107.6, according to NAR’s recent Pending Home Sales Index.

“The slip in pending home sales implies we’re not out of the woods yet, though an era of successive deep sales declines appears to be over,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist.