The housing market continued to deteriorate in the last months of 2008, a housing industry organization said Tuesday, as the credit crisis and falling stock market continued to provide little reason for buyers to sign the doted line for a new home.

The National Association of Realtors said its index for pending home sales fell 4% in November to a seasonally-adjusted reading of 82.3. The October reading was also revised downward to 85.7.

The reading was much worse than economists had expected, according to data from Thomson Reuters, who were looking for an index reading of 88.

“Mounting job losses and very weak consumer confidence deterred home buyers from signing contracts in November,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist for NAR said. “December’s housing market activity could be comparably lower due to ongoing problems in the economy.”

In the Northeast, home sales dropped 7.2% in November, while in the Midwest the index fell 6.7 %, the South declined 2.2%, and in the West, the index was down 2.4% from a month ago.

Factory Orders

The U.S. Commerce Department reported factory orders fell 4.6% during the month of November, much more than what economists had expected. 

Durable good orders, which are for products expected to longer than three years, fell 1.5% in November while non-durable orders, which includes petroleum products, fell by 7.4%.  

Economists, on average, were looking for factory orders to decline by 2.2%. The drop in factory orders was the fourth-straight drop for that economic indicator.

Unfilled orders, which are viewed as a sign of future demand for goods, were 0.6% lower in November.