WASHINGTON (AP) -- An industry group's monthly report due Monday is expected to show that existing home sales remained stuck last month at the record-low rate reported in October.

The National Association of Realtors' report on sales of existing homes in the U.S. for November is scheduled to be released at 10 a.m. EST.

Existing home sales for the month are expected to remain at 4.97 million units, according to the consensus forecast of Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson/IFR. A flat report would end eight-straight monthly declines, but still would represent a 21 percent drop from November 2006 when the trade group reported sales of 6.25 million existing homes.

Sales of existing homes fell to 4.97 million units in October from 5.03 million in September.

While most economists expect the housing downturn to continue and even worsen next year, the Realtors group has insisted that conditions are ripe for a rebound in the second half of 2008.

In more dismal news for the housing market, the Commerce Department reported Friday that new-home sales tumbled 9 percent in November from a month earlier to the worst sales pace since April 1995.

Also last week, another closely tracked measurement of the home prices in October for the 10th consecutive month. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index for 10 major U.S. cities fell 6.7 percent, beating the previous record decline of 6.3 percent recorded in April 1991.

Due to soaring defaults, which started out among borrowers with weak credit and expanded to other loans, many lenders, such as Countrywide Financial Corp. have scaled back their riskier loan operations and focused on mortgages that can be sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage finance companies.

Tightening lending standards have made it more difficult for many borrowers to qualify for loans, and fears about further declines in home prices have made many potential buyers wary about jumping in to a declining market.