WASHINGTON - Sales of new homes rose in November while the backlog of unsold homes fell for a fourth straight month, providing hope that the serious slump in housing could be ending.

Sales of new single-family homes rose by 3.4 percent over October sales to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.047 million units, reflecting solid sales increases in every region of the country except the South. The increase was better than had been expected and offered hope that the steep slide in housing may be starting to bottom out as builders, using a wide array of incentives, begin to make a dent in the record level of unsold homes.

Wall Street took notice of the uptick: Stock prices for large builders rose Wednesday. Lennar, a national builder with headquarters in west Miami-Dade, saw its shares increase 2 percent Wednesday to close at $52.61. The report, however, sent bonds lower. Since many investors are hoping that signs of economic weakness will motivate the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, this sign of strength was troublesome for bond investors.

The upbeat national news offered little insight into South Florida's own slow real estate market. Monthly figures for local new-home sales are not available. But today, the Florida Association of Realtors is scheduled to release its closely watched monthly report on sales of existing homes.

Sales for new homes throughout the country continue to trail 2005's pace, with November down 15 percent nationally, 19 percent in the South and a whopping 42 percent in the Northeast.

November's 3.4 percent rebound was the third monthly increase since July. It helped to lift the median price for a new home to $251,700, an increase of 3.2 percent from a year ago. The median price is the point where half the homes sold for more and half for less.

Housing analyst Bradley Hunter, head of MetroStudy's South Florida division in West Palm Beach, said the improving national numbers probably don't signal a broader recovery in the housing market.

''You can't read too much into the monthly numbers,'' he said. ``The long-term trend is certainly downward for housing starts nationally, and it's true locally, too.''

Other economists said the November rebound offered hope that the steep slide in housing may be coming to an end.

''It looks like sales activity has truly bottomed out,'' said David Seiders, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders.

The housing industry has undergone a severe slowdown following a prolonged boom that had been fueled by the lowest mortgage rates in more than four decades. This year's slump followed five years in which sales of both new and existing homes had set records.

What some are calling a recession in housing has been a big factor in the economy's overall slowdown, cutting 1.2 percentage points from growth in the July-September quarter, a period when the economy expanded at a lackluster annual pace of just 2 percent.

Many analysts believe housing is continuing to act as a drag on growth in the current quarter and will continue to depress activity through the early part of 2007.

The number of unsold homes fell by 1.4 percent in November to 545,000. It was the fourth straight decline in inventories after they had hit an all-time high of 573,000 units in July. Builders have been cutting prices and offering various incentives such as helping to cover closing costs in an effort to sell finished homes and reduce high cancellation rates.

It would take 6.3 months to exhaust the current supply of homes at the November sales pace, down from 6.7 months in October and 7.2 months in July. Sales last month increased in all parts of the country except the South, where they fell by 9.3 percent. Sales were up 22.5 percent in the Northeast, a rebound from a huge 35.5 percent drop in October. Sales rose by 22.4 percent in the Midwest and 19 percent in the West.