Metropolitan Pittsburgh's residential real estate prices grew by an average of 2 percent in June compared with a year ago, but the total dollars spent on homes fell by 15 percent during the same time frame.

While the increase in home values could be traced to new construction and families improving their homes, the steady decline in home sales is clearly a result of the slowing economy.

Although the metropolitan area had 488 fewer home sales last month compared with June 2007, it is a slight improvement from previous months this year when sales were off as much as 21 percent from last year.

"We're only losing a quart of blood as opposed to a quart and a half right now," said Daniel Murrer, vice president of RealSTATs. "The current downward trend in activity shows no sign of letting up."

RealSTATs reports housing market activity weekly to governments and firms in the legal and real estate industries.

June 2008 marked the 16th consecutive month of declining home sales in the metropolitan Pittsburgh area, according to RealSTATs.

Beaver County saw the biggest percentage drop with 82 fewer home sales, which translates to a 31.8 percent decline over June 2007. Butler County figures fell by 77 or 23.1 percent, followed by Washington County which had 22 fewer sales representing a 17.4 percent loss.

Allegheny County home sales last month were off by 273, which amounts to a 13.1 percent dip; and Westmoreland County saw a 9.8 percent drop in the number of home sales last month with 34 less than last year.

Three of the five counties showed median price increases with Beaver jumping 14 percent from $89,900 in June 2007 to $102,500 last month, followed by Butler and Allegheny counties, which showed modest gains of 1.9 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.

Median home prices dropped 8.2 percent to $128,500 in Washington County and by 3.3 percent to $123,050 in Westmoreland County.