Adding one more leaf to the green shoots of recovery in the US, pending pre-owned home sales, as expected, moved up in December last year.

Computed on basis of the contracts signed during the month of December, the Pending Home Sales Index from the stable of The National Association of Realtors inched one per cent up to 96.6. Earlier the index fell sharply in November creating worries of a fresh round of weakness in the housing sector.

However, the recovery in the housing sector is still very slow and the trend is expected to continue for some more time as privately owned houses continue to get emptied. As per data available, total number of such houses rose to 2.7 per cent in the last quarter of 209 as compared to 2.6 per cent in the third quarter. Vacancies have shown a rising trend during the last two quarters.

Bad news for the sector has also flown in from the Commerce Department, which in its latest report on Tuesday revealed that housing vacancies were at a low in the fourth quarter. Total number of empty houses during the quarter remained at 2.1 million for sales and 4.5 million for rent.