Housing market perks up as economy strengthens

The housing market is showing surprising signs of improvement in recent months, as the broader economy strengthens slightly heading into 2011. Sales of previously owned homes climbed 5.6 percent in November, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday, with gains reported in every region of the country, although home-buying activity remained well below healthy levels. The median price of existing homes sold in November was $170,600, up 0.4 percent from a year earlier, the association said. Also Wednesday, the Commerce Department revised upward its estimate of overall economic growth from July through September, saying that gross domestic product rose at a 2.6 percent annual rate, not the 2.5 percent earlier estimated.

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