Sales increased 4.7 percent to an annual pace of 337,000 after a 322,000 rate in January, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. The median sales price fell 18 percent from February 2008, the biggest year-on-year drop since records began in 1964, and the glut of properties on the market dwindled.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse Holdings USA in New York, who had forecast sales would rise. “Lower prices and mortgage rates are starting to get buyers back. We still have a lot of supply to absorb before things get back to normal.”

Bloomberg