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The number of buyers who entered into an agreement to buy a home dropped significantly in January, a sign that demand for housing has dropped this winter while stormy weather hampered the east coast.

Record snowstorms in both January and February left many people shoveling out instead of looking for open houses. An index that tracks sales agreements dropped 7.6 percent from December to a seasonally adjusted January reading of 90.4, according to the National Association of Realtors on Thursday morning.

This marked the lowest reading since April 2009 and disappointed economists, who had thought it would rise to 97.6.

The poor results, however, were not restricted to the wintry Northeast. The biggest month-to-month drop was in the West, where sales dropped by as much as 13 percent. Sales fell almost 9 percent in the Northeast and Midwest and 2 percent in the South.

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