Home resales fall, housing recovery still on track

A real estate sign is seen outside a deserted home stripped of its copper wiring in San Bernardino, California September 11, 2012. BERNARDINO/BANKRUPT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Home resales unexpectedly fell in December, but the drop was not large enough to suggest the recovery in the housing sector is running out of steam.

The National Association of Realtors said on Tuesday that existing home sales dropped 1.0 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.94 million units.

That was still the second-highest rate of sales since November 2009, when sales were lifted by a federal tax credit for home buyers, and the data pointed to momentum in the housing market.

"The outlook for housing is better this year than last year," said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

The U.S. housing market tanked on the eve of the 2007-09 recession and has yet to fully recover, but steady job creation helped the housing sector last year, when it likely added to economic growth for the first time since 2005.

The softer pace of resales was below the median forecast in a Reuters poll for a 5.1-million-unit gain. U.S. Treasuries pared price losses and stock prices were little changed.

The inventory of existing homes for sale fell 8.5 percent from November to 1.82 million, the lowest since January 2001.

Many Americans are holding back from putting homes on the market because they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Inventories were down 21.6 percent from December 2011.

A rise in homebuilding could help meet growing demand in the broader market for homes this year. The government said last week groundbreaking on new homes increased in December.

At the current pace of sales of existing homes, inventories would be exhausted in 4.4 months, the lowest rate since May 2005.

The low inventories are encouraging multiple bids on homes and helping to boost prices, NAR economist Lawrence Yun said.

Nationwide, the median price for a home resale was $180,800 in December, up 11.5 percent from a year earlier.

Distressed sales fell to 24 percent of total sales from 32 percent a year ago.

The share of distressed sales, which also include those where the sales price was below the amount owed on the home, was up from 22 percent in November.

A separate report showed factory activity in parts of the U.S. mid-Atlantic and South contracted in January, with the Richmond Federal Reserve bank's index of activity dropping to minus 12 from 5 in December.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by James Dalgleish)