Sales of existing homes rose in September by the most on record, a sign cheaper borrowing costs are helping stabilize an industry that’s battling the headwinds of foreclosures and joblessness.

Purchases increased 10 percent to a 4.53 million annual rate from 4.12 million in August, the National Association of Realtors said Monday in Washington. Economists forecast sales would rise to a 4.3 million pace, according to the median projection in a Bloomberg News survey. The median price fell 2.4 percent from a year earlier.

The lowest mortgage rates on record and cheaper homes are enticing some buyers and providing a backstop for the industry that precipitated the worst recession since the 1930s. At the same time, the housing recovery will be slowed by unemployment forecast to exceed 9 percent through 2011 and foreclosures that add to the inventory of unsold homes.

“Even with this improvement, you’re still at a remarkably depressed level,” said Tom Porcelli, senior economist at RBC Capital Markets Corp. in New York. “We’re going to continue to muddle along here, given the supply-demand imbalance.”

Estimates of the 72 economists surveyed by Bloomberg ranged from 4 million to 4.8 million. In July, sales ran at a 3.84 million annual rate, the weakest in a decade’s worth of record-keeping by the Realtors group.

Stocks rose, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to a fourth straight gain, as investors bet the Federal Reserve will announce further action to stimulate the economy after it meets next week. The S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent to 1,185.62 at the 4 p.m. close in New York. Treasury securities were little changed.

Compared with a year earlier, existing home sales were down 19 percent before adjusting for seasonal patterns.

Sales last month rose in all four regions, the report showed, led by a 14.5 percent jump in the Midwest.

The median price decreased 2.4 percent to $171,700 last month from September 2009.

Purchases of single-family homes rose 10 percent to a 3.97 million annual rate in September from a month earlier, the group said.

The number of previously owned homes on the market fell 1.9 percent to 4.04 million. At the current sales pace, it would take 10.7 months to sell those houses, compared with 12 months in August.

The supply would need to drop to eight to nine months in order to stabilize home prices, according to the NAR.

Distressed sales, which include foreclosures and short-sales in which the bank agrees to take less than the full amount of the mortgage, accounted for 35 percent of total sales.

A government tax credit of as much as $8,000 gave housing a temporary lift late last year and into 2010. Purchases plunged in July, the month after buyers were originally required to close deals in order to get the incentive. Sales of existing houses are lower than the 4.83 million average pace set during the recession that ended in June 2009, and are well off the record 7.25 million peak reached in September 2005.

Foreclosure moratoria at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other banks, along with government investigations into faulty paperwork, threaten to further delay a recovery as houses slated for repossession take longer to come to market.

Foreclosures are mounting as out-of-work Americans can’t meet monthly payments while growing numbers of homeowners, seeing their home prices slide to less than their mortgage values, default.

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