WASHINGTON: US existing home sales plunged to a 12-year low in December, but declining mortgage rates raised cautious hope that the embattled housing market could be close to finding a floor.

Existing home sales fell 1.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.02 million units last month, the lowest level since November 2010, the National Association of Realtors said on Friday. That marked the 11th straight monthly decline in sales, the longest such stretch since 1999.

Sales dropped in the Northeast, South and Midwest. They were unchanged in the West. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast home sales falling to a rate of 3.96 million units.

Home resales, which account for a big chunk of US housing sales, tumbled 34.0% on a year-on-year basis in December. They fell 17.8% to 5.03 million units in 2022, the lowest annual total since 2014 and the sharpest annual decline since 2008.

The Federal Reserve’s fastest interest rate-hiking cycle since the 1980s has pushed housing into recession. While a survey from the National Association of Home Builders this week showed confidence among single-family homebuilders improving in January, morale remained depressed.

Single-family homebuilding rebounded in December, but permits for future construction dropped to more than a 2-1/2- year low, and outside the pandemic plunge, they were the lowest since February 2016. But the worst of housing market rout is probably behind.