New data out Tuesday show that declining sales along the Wasatch Front pushed the median selling price of single-family homes in Salt Lake County down 4 percent, to $243,000, in the third quarter, compared with the July-August-September period last year.

"We're now close to the prices we saw in 2006," said Jillinda Bowers, president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors. "That was before we saw all the investors and subprime loans drive the prices up so high."

What now? Bowers said she wouldn't be surprised to see the county's median selling price drop more, though she doesn't think the market will see price cuts as deep as those hitting other parts of the country.

Several economists have predicted a peak-to-trough home-price decline in the Salt Lake area of as much as 15 to 20 percent. If they are right, prices have fallen only one-third to one-half of where they're headed.

Home sales already are off in the double digits. In the third quarter, 2,464 existing single-family homes changed hands in the county, down 11.5 percent from the same time last year, the board said.

Sellers of homes priced above $500,000 continue to make the largest price concessions, Bowers said. Fewer buyers are able to get the exotic and adjustable-rate loans that made those purchases possible, which has made the luxury home market less attractive for investors and other borrowers.

"Close to 80 percent of the homes that are selling are those priced below $300,000," Bowers said.

Home sales are down in all Wasatch Front counties, compared with last year. But prices have held up better in the more-affordable counties of Tooele and Weber, which have lower median selling prices.

Prices in Tooele County were up 1 percent over last year, while prices in Weber County are down only one-half of 1 percent.

The downturn is more pronounced in Utah and Davis counties, where prices are off 6 percent and 4 percent, respectively. In Davis, Andrew Rinehart of Bountiful has his home on the market for nearly $1.2 million. He's planning on lopping off another 8 percent - or about $96,000 - from the selling price in hopes of attracting a buyer as part of a promotion offered by his listing agent's brokerage.

Home sales along the Wasatch Front began to drop sharply last summer because of a number of factors, including tighter lending standards put in the place in the wake of the nation's subprime lending crisis, which has reduced the pool of buyers who can qualify for a home loan. Another factor is the years of home-price run-ups that have put home ownership out of reach of many Utahns.

Higher mortgage rates and the elimination of a popular down payment-assistance program haven't helped.

But sellers over the past year and a half have been reluctant to lower prices, electing instead to sell or to rent their properties until market conditions improve. However, the home-price decline in the third quarter suggests that enough people have had to sell, and to do that they were forced to lower prices to attract potential buyers.

Even the condominium market, with its lower-priced housing units, is suffering.

Sales of existing condominiums in Salt Lake County fell 13.6 percent in the one-year period, to 637 transactions. The median selling price of condominiums in the third quarter was off 1.2 percent, to $170,000. The Wasatch Front's downturn began about two years after the beginning of the national real estate downturn, which is expected to linger on into next year.

The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index of 20 large cities (not including Salt Lake City), released Tuesday by Standard & Poor's, shows that home prices nationally in August were down 16.6 percent, compared with the same month last year.

The index has fallen every month since January 2007. Because of the difficulty many buyers are having getting mortgages - even those with good credit - the market is likely to continue to struggle.

''There's still quite a bit further for prices to go down, even though the volume has probably bottomed out,'' said William Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services Inc. in Boston. ''Prices will probably find a bottom sometime next year.''

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* BLOOMBERG NEWS contributed to this report.