Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes surged in February to the fastest pace in six months as homebuyers seized on a modest drop in mortgage rates.
Existing home sales jumped 14.5% last month from January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.58 million, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.
The surge in sales — the biggest on records going back to 1999 — ended a 12-month slide that knocked the nation’s housing market into its deepest slump in nearly a decade and left sales in January at the slowest pace in more than a dozen years.