Sales figures of the housing industry have reportedly recorded a positive surge in November. This increase is expected to boost and contribute much to the ailing, albeit slowly recovering U.S. economy.
Purchase of formerly owned houses has recorded a 5.9 percent increase to an annual rate of 5.04 million, the highest since November 2009, reported Bloomberg.
Sales of homes have gone up to 14.5 percent from the figures of last year. November 2012 results have recorded a three year high. The markets are expected to gain profit from the low prices and rates, reported MarketWatch.
Sales percentages in the housing sector went up in all the regions. In the south and the Midwest, sales were recorded to be up 7.9 percent and 7.2 percent, respectively, while the Northeast and Western region recorded a 6.9 and 0.8 percent hike correspondingly.
"Momentum continues to build in the housing market from growing jobs and a bursting out of household formation," Lawrence Yun, chief economist at National Association of Realtors (NAR) told MarketWatch.
"Housing is going from being a powerful headwind to the economy to what will be a powerful tailwind," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics Inc.told Bloomberg. "It turned around in 2012, and I think it's going to take off in 2013."
However, the housing sector still has a long way to go. With the economy in slow recovery and unemployment rates still hanging loose, first time home buyers have seen a slump, reported MarketWatch.
"While we were projecting a recovery in home sales and prices in the second half of the year the pace of gains has exceeded our expectations. In our view the economy is a greater threat to the housing market (given the lack of resolution of the fiscal cliff) than the housing market is to the economy," analysts at RDQ Economics wrote in a research note, reported MarketWatch.
As per the reports of NAR, sales of houses costing more than a million dollars have increased 52 percent when compared to the figures 2011. Nevertheless, these high price homes only make up a small portion of the total sales, reported MarketWatch.
