2018 ended up being the best year for existing-home sales in 11 years, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Existing-home sales dropped 3.6% month over month on a seasonally adjusted basis in December as inventory shortages were severe. But even with that decline, sales for all of 2018 were up 1.1% over the prior year, hitting a sales pace of 5.51 million – the highest since 2006.

NAR’s chief economist, said: “The lack of supply over the past year has been eye-opening and is why, even with strong job creation pushing wages higher, home-price gains – at 5.8% nationally in 2018 – doubled the pace of income growth and were even swifter in several markets.”

Inventory was tighter than ever and hit a new all-time low. Total US inventory at the end of December was 1.48 million existing homes available for sale – an 11.4% drop from the year before. Unsold inventory is at a 3.2-month supply at the current sales pace – the lowest level since NAR began tracking nearly two decades ago.

The median existing-home price in the US last month was $246,800, a 5.8% spike from December 2017. December of 2018 also marked the 70th consecutive month of year-over-year price gains.