The National Association of Realtors reports on January sales of existing U.S. homes Wednesday at 10 a.m. Eastern. Economists forecast sales will tick up to a seasonally adjusted 5.55 million, up from 5.49 million in December.
STURDY SALES?: Sales of existing homes slipped in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.49 million. Yet for all of last year, sales rose 3.8 percent to 5.45 million. Those figures point to a housing market that has largely recovered from the housing bust that set off the Great Recession a decade ago. Sales slipped below 4 million a year during the downturn.