Home Resales Down 5.2% in January

U.S. sales of previously owned homes fell 5.2% in January, the most in almost nine years, an industry group said. The 6.04-million-unit annual pace of resales was still high enough to suggest that housing would help support the economy this year.

Resales had risen to a 6.37-million-unit rate in December, the National Assn. of Realtors said, and for all of 2003 they totaled a record 6.1 million. Severe winter weather may have contributed to last month’s drop, the biggest since a 5.2% decline in April 1995, the association said.