BOSTON – Rhode Island single-family home sales in September fell by a little less than 1 percent from the previous year, but the median price of those homes dropped 17 percent, real estate tracker The Warren Group (TWG) reported today.

September sales fell to 568 homes, from the 573 sold in the same month of 2007.

The small September decline follows the slowest August in 15 years, when sales fell more than 20 percent from 2007. Despite sales only slightly lower than a year ago, it was still the slowest September in 12 years, TWG reported.

At the same time, the median price for a single-family home sold in September fell to $220,000, for a year-over-year decline of 17 percent. That is the sharpest drop in monthly home prices since TWG started tracking the Rhode Island market in 1989.

“The sales picture seemed to have improved somewhat compared to prior months this year, when monthly sales declined anywhere from 17 to 25 percent,” CEO Timothy Warren Jr. said in an accompanying statement. “But the single-family median home prices have fallen by double-digit percentages for four consecutive months. And mounting job losses and economic woes will surely be a drag on market conditions going forward.”

Year-to-date single-family homes sales have declined 15.93 percent to 5,140, from 6,114 sales in the same nine-month period of 2007. Third-quarter sales alone fell 7.66 percent compared with the 2007 period to 1,945.

The median price for a single-family homes sold in Rhode Island in the January-through-September period fell 11.1 percent year-over-year to $240,000, while the median price in the third quarter dropped 16.06 percent compared with the 2007 third quarter to $230,000.

Condominium sales in September fell 21.23 percent – to 115 this year from 146 a year ago – and were 33.24 percent lower in the first nine months of the year compared with January through September 2007.

Median prices for condominiums sold in September dropped 14.35 percent year-over-year to $197,000. The year-to-date price of condos sold statewide fell 4.87 percent to $215,000.

The Warren Group Inc. is a provider of New England real estate data and publisher of Banker & Tradesman and other journals. Additional information is available at www.TheWarrenGroup.com.