Stat of the Day: Dec Existing Home Sales Rise 6.5%

The news surrounding Home Sales continue to improve. Existing home sales rose unexpectedly in December. As we've reported in the past, home sales in areas such as California have been increasing at a dramatic rate. This is whats needed to stem the bleeding. Prices have finally gotten low enough to increase demand. Combine that with fewer houses being built and we'll soon enough work off the inventory. So the negative is the record drop to housing prices to $175K, but at the same time the inventory dropping to 9 months is very encouraging that the housing market is about to reach equilibrium.

• The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of existing homes rose 6.5 percent to an annual rate of 4.74 million in December, from a downwardly revised pace of 4.45 million in November.
• The results were better than expected. December's sales had been forecasted to fall to a pace of 4.4 million units, according to Thomson Reuters.
• The nationwide median sales price plunged to $175,400, down 15.3 percent from $207,000 a year ago. That was the lowest price since May 2003 and the biggest year-over-year drop on records going back to 1968.
• And another encouraging sign -- the number of unsold homes on the market in last month fell nearly 12 percent to 3.7 million. At the current sales pace, it would take 9.3 months to sell all the properties, down from 11.2 months in November.