NEW YORK (PNN) - November 25, 2013 - Despite the downtick in rates for a month or two, the housing “recovery” appears to have come to an end. This is the fifth consecutive monthly decline in pending home salesand even though a smorgasbord of Wall Street's best and brightest doth protest, it would appear the lagged impact of rising rates is with us for good. This is the biggest decline since April 2011 as National Association of Realtors blames low inventories and affordabilityfor the poor performance. Perhaps more worrying for those still clinging to the hope that this ends well are the new mortgage rules in January that could further delay approvals.

So the Federal Reserve provided the liquidity that bid prices up to a point that makes it unaffordable for the average joe and uneconomic for the average free-money-riding hedge fund. The Fed has made any recovery entirely dependent on extremely low rates and now is suggesting that taper is coming.