Housing slowdown deepens in Mass.

Single-family home sales and prices in Massachusetts fell 1.5 percent in March, capping a first quarter in which sales slowed dramatically from the previous year, according to a housing report released yesterday.

''Inventory is at record highs, so buyers are taking their time," said David Wluka, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. ''They can pick among several houses so they don't feel the pressure."

The slowdown in Massachusetts' housing market ran counter to a surprising pick-up in March in nationwide sales of homes, condominiums, and townhouses. Analysts had predicted that strong February sales, perhaps because of unusually warm weather across the country, could not be sustained.

But sales of existing US homes increased 0.3 percent, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.9 million units, between February and March, according to the National Association of Realtors, while sales in the Northeast rose 1.7 percent.

The housing market in Massachusetts ''simply isn't as strong as it is in other states," said Patrick Newport, an economist for Lexington research firm Global Insight.

The Warren Group, a Boston-based financial and real estate research firm, said 4,416 single-family homes sold statewide last month, below March 2005 sales of 4,482. The median house price dipped to $325,000, from $330,000 in March 2005.

For the entire first quarter, single-family sales were 8.4 percent below year-ago sales, the Warren Group said. Home sales in Massachusetts have fallen in 13 of the past 14 months, when compared to the same month a year earlier.

Newport said a combination of population losses -- the US Census Bureau estimates the state lost more than 42,000 residents a year between 2001 and 2004 -- and a sluggish economy combined to curtail sales. ''People are leaving for other states, and there's less demand for housing than there is in the rest of the country," he said.

In contrast, Massachusetts condo sales continued to rise in March: The number sold rose 1.4 percent from March 2005, to 2,554, the Warren Group said. Sales for the quarter were down 1 percent, to 6,108 condos sold.

The median price for a condo surged 6.2 percent last month, to $276,119, from $260,000.

''This is the first time [condo sales] have not gone up a lot," said Alan Pasnik, a Warren Group analyst who compiled the monthly report.

Yesterday, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors also released its March sales figures, and they told a different story. According to the association, March sales of single-family homes increased 2 percent, to 3,440, from March 2005. The group confirmed a 1.7 percent decline in the median price, to $344,000, for single-family homes.

The association said condo sales were up 2.4 percent statewide, to 1,731, and prices rose 2.2 percent, to $270,900, from last March.

The Warren Group, which culls its data from court records, has a larger database than the Realtors association, which relies exclusively on sales recorded by multiple listing services used by agents around the state. As a result, the Warren Group's count also includes sales by owners and private and other transactions that do not appear in the listing service. Both groups report on real estate sales closed during the month.

Wluka said the increase in March single-family sales in the agents' sales database indicates they have been ''educating buyers and sellers as to what's going on because of the turnaround," while people selling their own homes ''haven't learned to price" in the current environment.

Ken Maddeford, owner of Maddeford and Garcia Real Estate in Chelsea, said everyone is feeling the pinch of rising mortgage rates, which are almost a percentage point higher than a year ago, and rising gasoline prices, which make prospective buyers more hesitant to enter the market. According to Bankrate.com, the average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage in Massachusetts on Monday was 6.08 percent; a year ago, it was 5.33 percent.

''It's very expensive to live," Maddeford said. ''If they don't have as much money to live, they don't have as much to save, and they don't have money for a house."

Kimberly Blanton can be reached at blanton@globe.com.