Despite rising mortgage interest rates, the National Association of Realtors anticipates the U.S. housing market to experience its third best year in 2006, according to a recent forecast. “Coming off a prolonged period of record sales, housing is taking something of a breather this year,” said NAR Chief Economist David Lereah. “Even so, interest rates remain historically low, we’ve added about 2 million jobs over the last 12 months, and the economy continues to grow — that will sustain healthy levels of home sales in 2006, but they’ll stay below the peaks experienced during the last two years.”

According to the forecast, existing home sales in the U.S. are expected to reach 6.62 million units in 2006, down 6.4% from the record 7.08 million set in 2005. Similarly, new home sales are projected to decline 11.6% to 1.13 million units.