Home prices rose in 40 percent of U.S. cities in the fourth quarter of 2009, as massive federal government spending helped the housing market show signs of stabilizing, a real-estate industry group reported Thursday. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said the median price for previously occupied homes sold rose in 67 of 151 metropolitan areas in the October-December period compared to a year earlier. It was a sharp improvement from the third quarter, when median home prices rose in only 20 percent of cities surveyed. The median price in the fourth quarter was 4.1 percent lower than from the fourth quarter of 2008, and it was the smallest 12-month price decline in more than two years.
