No one is popping champagne, but there have been some good signs for the housing market in recent days.

The National Association of Realtors today said its October data shows existing-home sales were up 1.4 percent from the month before and the volume of homes on the market was down. With seasonal adjustments, the association said, the annual rate in October was 4.97 million single-family homes, co-ops, condominiums and townhomes.

The National Association of Home Builders reported that permits for multifamily homes had gone up 5.1 percent in October, along with a 3.9 percent rise in permits for single-family homes.

In another bright spot, the Mortgage Bankers Association says that delinquencies for one- to four-unit housing went down to 7.99 percent in the third quarter of this year. That, the association reported, is the best since the fourth quarter of 2008.

In keeping with the cautious optimism, however, the mortgage bankers also reported that 4.43 percent of loans were in the foreclosure process, which was a shade above the third-quarter figure from 2010.