US existing home sales unexpectedly rise in January

Sales of existing US homes unexpectedly rose in January, hitting a six-month high, according to data released by the National Association of Realtors.

According to the figures, existing home sales edged up 0.4% to an annual rate of 5.47m from a downwardly-revised 5.45m in December, beating economists’ expectations for a drop to 5.32m.

There were 1.82m existing homes available for sale, but this was still 2.2% lower than a year ago, while the median price for a home increased 8.2% from January 2015 to $213,800.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said: "The housing market has shown promising resilience in recent months, but home prices are still rising too fast because of ongoing supply constraint.

"Despite the global economic slowdown, the housing sector continues to recover and will likely help the US economy avoid a recession."