WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. home sales rose for the third consecutive month in November. However, supply remained tight. This kept house prices high and pushed out first-time buyers.

The National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday that existing home sales rose 1.9% last month to 6.46 million units at a seasonally adjusted annual pace. The most expensive Midwest and densely populated South saw sales rise, as did the West. The Northeast saw no change in sales.

Reuters polled economists and predicted that sales would rise to 6.52 million units. The bulk of U.S. home sales came from resales. They fell by 2.0% year-on-year.

Investors and individual buyers are both driving the strong housing demand. These investors renovate the houses and then sell them to make the most of this hot housing market. The supply continues to fall, which has kept the house prices elevated.

According to data released by the government last week, there is an unprecedented backlog of homes that have been approved for construction and not yet begun. The shortage of workers, high-priced materials, and delayed supply are all causing problems for builders.

From a year ago, the median house price rose 13.9% to $353,900 by November. The demand could be cooled by rising prices and mortgage rates in the coming year.

Last week, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 3.12%. That’s an improvement from 3.10% last week according to data provided by mortgage finance agency. Freddie Mac (OTC:).

According to a report by the Mortgage Bankers Association, Wednesday’s volume of mortgage applications fell to its lowest level in almost two years due to a drop of 3% in loans for home purchases.

The Federal Reserve said last week it would end its pandemic-era bond purchases in March and pave the way for three quarter-percentage-point interest rate hikes by the end of 2022.

The number of homes previously owned on the market was 1.11million last month. This is down 13.3% compared to a year ago.

It would take approximately 2.1 months to eliminate the inventory at November’s pace. This is down from 2.3 month ago. An inventory of six to seven months is considered a balanced supply-demand ratio.

Last month’s average property remained on the marketplace for only 18 days, compared to 21 days a year earlier. Eighty three percent of houses sold remained on the market for less that a month.

Last month’s sales were 26% higher than the 32% recorded a year earlier. It was the lowest point since January 2014.