U.S. home sales are up

The U.S. housing market finished 2014 in solid form.

Sales of newly built single-family homes were up 11.6 percent in December, to a total of 481,000 units during the last month of the year, according to data released Tuesday by the National Association of Home Builders in Washington, D.C.

The inventory of homes for sale rose to 219,000 during the last month of last year, enough of a supply to last five and a half months at the current pace of sales, the report stated.

“This uptick is in line with what our builders are telling us in surveys on the ground,” said Tom Woods, chairman of the association, in a statement. “They are seeing increased traffic and more serious buyers in the market for single-family homes.”