Home-price growth accelerated in January, the latest indication that the U.S. housing market was poised for a strong year of sales before the coronavirus pandemic struck.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures average home prices in major metropolitan areas across the nation, rose 3.9% in the year that ended in January, up from a 3.7% annual rate the prior month.

Economists and real-estate executives had expected robust home sales this year due to a strong job market and low mortgage rates. U.S. existing-home sales rose to a 13-year high in February, according to the National Association of Realtors.

But with the pandemic now keeping potential buyers and sellers on the sidelines, experts expect the pace of home sales to sharply decelerate. Capital Economics forecast in March that home sales would drop 35% in the second quarter of 2020 compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.

The numbers: The index of pending home sales increased 2.4% in February following the previous month’s rebound, the National Association of Realtors reported Monday.

The index measures real-estate transactions where a contract was signed but the sale had not yet closed, benchmarked to contract-signing activity in 2001. It serves as an indicator for existing-home sales reports in the coming months.

What happened: Compared with February 2019, signings were up 9.4% nationally.

On a monthly basis, pending sales were up in every region with the West seeing the largest gain at 4.6%, followed by the Midwest (4.5%) and the Northeast (2.8%). In the South, contract signings inched up just 0.1%.

The big picture: Before the coronavirus outbreak hit the U.S., the residential real-estate market was in a decent position. While the short supply of homes for sale had put a ceiling on the number of sales that could happen