David Lereah, NAR?EUR??,,????'???s chief economist, said market conditions are nearly the opposite of a year ago.

?EUR??,,????'??Last year we had a record sales market and historically tight supplies of homes with buyers bidding over the asking price,?EUR??,,????'?? he said. ?EUR??,,????'??With the market in full transition, buyers now have choices and sellers are more willing to negotiate ?EUR??,,????'??? under these circumstances it?EUR??,,????'???s no surprise that overall home prices are slightly below a year ago. We expect this trend to continue in the months ahead, but we?EUR??,,????'???ll see modest appreciation in most of the country in 2007.?EUR??,,????'??

The national median existing single-family home price was $224,900 in the third quarter, down 1.2 percent from a year earlier when the median price was $227,600.

The biggest total sales increase was in North Carolina, where existing-home sales rose 9.7 percent from the third quarter of 2005. In Texas the third-quarter resale pace rose 8.6 percent from a year earlier, while Montana experienced the third strongest gain, up 6.4 percent.

The largest single-family home price increase was in the Salem, Ore., area, where the third quarter price of $228,000 was 24.7 percent higher than a year ago. Next was Elmira, N.Y., at $93,600, up 21.4 percent from the third quarter of 2005. The Salt Lake City area, with a third quarter median price of $216,300, increased 19.2 percent in the last year.

Median third-quarter metro area single-family prices ranged from a very affordable $86,000 in both Decatur, Ill., and the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman area of Ohio and Pennsylvania, to nearly nine times that amount in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont area where the median price was $749,400. The second most expensive area was the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area of California, at $747,400, followed by the Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine area (Orange Co., Calif.), at $705,000.