Economic growth in the past couple of months has slowed significantly, but despite that, U.S. home resales bounced back from a 19-month low, Reuters reports. Unseasonably warm weather and the anticipation of higher mortgage rates spurred the sales jump.
The sale’s pace for November was 4.76 million units and economists predicted a rebound in resales to a 5.20-million rate for December. Overall, sales rose 6.5 percent to 5.26 million units in 2015. That is the biggest rise since 2006.
In addition, December’s number of unsold homes fell 12.3 percent to 1.79 million units. This means, at December’s sales pace, it would take 3.9 months to clear the backlog of house on the market, the quickest pace since January 2005.
