After years of increases, some buyers say prices are still out of their range.

The Commerce Department reported that the median price for a new home sold in September was $217,100, a decline of 9.7 percent from September 2005.

That was the lowest median home price in two years and the sharpest year-over-year decline since December 1970, providing dramatic evidence of the slowdown in the once-booming housing market.

The median price is the middle point, where half sell for more and half sell for less.

In Utah, annual gains of 20 percent to 30 percent continue in neighborhoods along the Wasatch Front, according to a third quarter report released last week by the Salt Lake Board of Realtors.

But the number of homes that changed hands in Salt Lake and Davis counties in the third quarter declined compared with the same three months in 2005.

The price decline for new homes in the rest of the country followed a report Wednesday that prices in the much bigger existing home sales market also dropped on a year-over-year basis in September by 2.5 percent, the largest decline in records going back nearly four decades.

Analysts say further price declines are probable for both new and existing homes.