Home improvement retailer Lowes Cos. reported fourth-quarter revenue of $15.78 billion, easily surpassing Wall Street expectations of $15.28 billion, due to a strong housing market.

For the three months ended Feb. 3, Lowe’s earned $663 million, or 74 cents per share. A year earlier the Mooresville, North Carolina-based company earned $11 million, or 1 cent per share. Earnings, adjusted for one-time costs and severance costs, came to 86 cents per share. Analysts had projected earnings of 79 cents per share for the quarter.

Comparable store sales increased 5.1 percent. Average spending by Low’s customers also increased 3.6 percent in the quarter.

Lowes attributed its healthy quarter to a housing market where prices are rising and sales are increasing. In January, existing-home sales increased 3.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.7 million, the fastest pace in nearly a decade, according to the National Association of Realtors.

“We achieved strong fourth quarter results, delivering comparable sales growth and adjusted earnings per share above our expectations,” said Robert A. Niblock, Lowe’s CEO. “We leveraged our omni-channel platform, customer experience design capabilities, and project expertise to drive strong holiday performance and capitalize on broad-based project demand throughout the quarter.”

As of Feb. 3, the company operated 2,129 home improvement and hardware stores in the U.S., Canada and Mexico representing 213.4 million square feet of retail selling space.

The home improvement retailer also forecast 2017 sales of $68.27 billion and earnings of $4.64 per share, above analyst’s estimates of $4.53 per share.

Its shares closed at $81.45, up $7.08 or 9.52 percent, on Wednesday.

The Securities and Exchange filing can be found here.