New-home sales rose 7.7% in November.

The increase was the biggest advance in more than a year, the Commerce and the Housing and Urban Development departments reported. New single-family homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 671,000 units in November, following three straight months of declining sales. David Wyss, an economist with Data Resources in Lexington, Mass., said the pickup may finally be showing a delayed response to the steady declines in mortgage rates of recent months. The report said the average price of a new home rose $100 to $102,500 while the median price of a home fell 1% to $84,700 in November, down from $85,500 in October.