Pending home sales in the U.S. fell by more than expected in the month of December, according to a report released by the National Association of Realtors on Wednesday, with the pending home sales index giving back ground after reaching a nineteen-month high in November. NAR said its pending home sаles index fell 3.5 percent to a reading of 96.6 in December from a reading of 100.1 in November. Economists had been expecting the index to drop by about 1.0 percent. A pending sale is one in which a contract was signed but not yet closed. Normally, it takes four to six weeks to close a contracted sale. Despite the monthly decrease, NAR noted that its pending home sales index is up by 5.6 percent compared to a reading of 91.5 in December of 2010. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said, "Even with a modest decline, the preceding two months of contract activity are the highest in the past four years outside of the homebuyer tax credit period." "Contract failures remain an issue, reported by one-third of Realtors over the past few months, but home buyers are not giving up," he added. The monthly drop in pending home sales was partly due to weakness in the West, where pending home sales fell by 11.0 percent. Pending home sales in the Northeast and the South also fell by 3.1 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively, while pending sales in the Midwest rose by 4.0 percent. Last Friday, NAR released a separate report showing that U.S. existing home sales in the U.S. rose for the third consecutive month in December, with home sales rising to their highest level in almost a year. NAR said existing home sales rose 5.0 percent to an annual rate of 4.61 million in December from a downwardly revised 4.39 million in November. Economists had expected sales to increase by 5.2 percent to an annual rate of 4.65 million from the 4.42 million originally reported for the previous month. With the continued increase, existing home sales rose to their highest annual rate since coming in at 4.64 million in January of 2011. Thursday morning, the Commerce Department is due to release a separate report on U.S. new home sales in the month of December. Economists expect home sales to edge up to an annual rate of 320,000 from 315,000 in the previous month.