More people were willing to buy and sell homes in January as a downtick in mortgage rates helped to slightly unstick a housing market that’s been gridlocked lately by high interest rates for home loans.

The volume of sales for existing homes rose 3.1% in January from December to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 4 million, its highest since August, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. Homebuyers had slightly more options too, with the number of homes for sale edging up 2.0% from the month prior to more than 1 million.

The uptick highlighted how much would-be buyers and sellers have been waiting for lower interest rates. The contracts for those sales were likely signed one or two months earlier, at a time when the average rate offered for a 30-year mortgage was sliding down from its recent peak of nearly 8%, its highest in more than 20 years according to Freddie Mac. The average rate was 6.77% last week.

“While home sales remain sizably lower than a couple of years ago, January’s monthly gain is the start of more supply and demand,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the association, said in a press release. “Listings were modestly higher, and home buyers are taking advantage of lower mortgage rates compared to late last year.”

An improvement from last year is not saying much, however, since fewer homes sold in 2023 than any year since 1995, according to association records. High mortgage rates—pushed up by the Federal Reserve’s campaign of anti-inflation interest rate hikes—have helped drive monthly mortgage payments out of reach for many first-time buyers. Rates have also discouraged sellers from putting their homes on the market since in many cases they would have to give up ultra-low mortgage rates they got during the pandemic or earlier.

“It's not any big celebration, but it’s essentially maybe marking a turn in the corner, perhaps,” Yun said on a conference call with reporters.

And in a strange twist, housing prices have stayed high despite a low number of sales, since buyers are competing for a relatively small number of homes on the market. Houses sold for a median price of $379,100, the highest in any January on record, the association said. High competition for homes and high levels of housing wealth have helped boost the number of all-cash transactions to 32%, the highest in nearly 10 years, Yun said.

The combination of high prices and low sales was a "testament to the housing shortage that we are facing in America," Yun said.

Forecasters expect mortgage interest rates to fall, affordability to improve somewhat, and home sales to rise this year as the Fed eventually lowers its key interest rate.