Sure, there are some areas feeling the pain. The median selling price in Utah County's Alpine area is down nearly 27 percent from last year, while neighboring Lindon is down nearly 22 percent. Prices in Davis County's Kaysville are down more than 23 percent. In Salt Lake County, the east-side Salt Lake City ZIP code area 84018 is down more than 18 percent.

But prices in many other areas are off by a much smaller margin, and overall, prices have yet to plunge, according to figures from the Salt Lake Board of Realtors released Wednesday.

In Salt Lake County, 28 percent fewer homes changed hands in the second quarter, compared with last year, yet the county's median selling price overall has fallen only 1.6 percent over the past year.

Other counties also are experiencing large drops in home sales, too. Yet Davis County's selling prices are off just under 2 percent from last year. Utah County is off about 4 percent, with Tooele County's median down 6 percent. Weber County's median? It's actually up 4.3 percent from last year.

"There are still many people who just aren't aggressively cutting their prices yet," said Wells Fargo & Co. economist Kelly Matthews. "They are trying to wait this whole thing out, hoping they will get a better price down the line."

Economists say it's not unusual for home prices to remain "sticky" for some time after a real estate market takes a turn for the worse, and the Wasatch Front's market only began to really turn sour last summer.

Many sellers refuse to lower their prices even months into a downturn, letting their properties languish on the market. Others will elect to take their homes off the market and wait until conditions improve.

In other cases, owners are "upside down" in their mortgages, meaning they owe more than their home is worth. In that case, they can't take aggressive price reductions without approval from the bank holding their mortgage. And banks often aren't motivated to take big losses until they are forced to do so.

Matthews believes that if the market doesn't improve considerably in the coming months, "sooner or later, people are going to be forced to cut prices," he said. "I'm still convinced there is going to be further price reductions."

Jillinda Bowers, president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors, is more upbeat. She notes that sales, while down year-over-year, have climbed in each of the past five months.

She believes that any further selling-price reductions will be mainly in higher-end homes.

"We don't have as much demand in that price range," Bowers said. She said the market is at its worst when the asking prices are above $350,000 - especially so above $450,000.

Indeed, most of the largest selling-price declines in the second quarter along the Wasatch Front were in higher-priced areas. Alpine, which registered the largest sales-price drop of nearly 27 percent, is also the most expensive area along the Wasatch Front. The median selling price, even after the drop, is still $419,000. Even with Lindon's large drop of 21.5 percent, the median is still nearly $329,000 - a price that's out of reach of many Utah families.

Kaysville is Davis County's second-most expensive area, with a median selling price of $266,500, even after a huge 23.2 percent drop.

In Salt Lake County, areas taking the biggest hits were all above $300,000. Salt Lake City's east-side ZIP code area 84018 is down 18.4 percent to $379,900, followed by Holladay's two ZIP code areas, 84117 and 84124, both of which are down nearly 15 percent percent to $328,250 and $347,000 respectively. Riverton is down 13.2 percent to $300,000.

Overall, Matthews predicts a "correction" of 15 percent to 20 percent. Economic-forecasting company Economy.com has predicted prices in the Salt Lake metro area will fall from a peak last year as much as 20 percent by early 2010.

But the market varies greatly. Higher priced homes - especially in areas where builders are slashing prices - may have to be discounted the most to sell; more affordable homes less so. Values of homes in more attractive areas may hold up better than those in less attractive areas.

Real-estate agent Jeremy Grover said some savvy buyers are nabbing some great deals. In Fruit Heights, for example, a home that at the height of the market would have gone for about $900,000 recently sold for $650,000. He's now marketing a property for sale at $669,000 that could sell in the low $600s; two years ago it probably would have sold for $850,000.

"You can just get some tremendous deals right now in the higher priced homes," Grover said. "The higher you go, the better value you can get."