According to the housing industry report, the total number of existing homes that were sold in December rose to 6.5% from the previous month .

The National Association of Realtors said that home sales increased to a seasonally-adjusted, annualized rate of 4.74 million units. That's up from a revised 4.45 million units sold in November and more than the 4.4 million units projected by a consensus of industry analysts as reported by Briefing.com.

Still, December's existing home sales are down 3.5% compared with December of 2007, when the seasonally-adjusted, annual rate was 4.91 million.

Thanks to the sales increase, the number of homes available on the market decreased 11.7% in December from the previous month, to 3.68 million existing homes for sale. That represents a 9.3-month inventory supply at the current pace of sales, down from a 11.2-month supply in November.

Bargain prices are bringing buyers back into the market. The median existing home price was down 15.3% to $175,400 from December 2007, when the median price was $207,000. The median price measures where half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less.

For all of 2008, there were 4,912,000 homes sold, which was the lowest volume since 1997, when there were 4,371,000 homes sold. The 2008 sales volume was down 13.1% from the 5,652,000 existing homes sold in 2007.

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