A market on the mend?

“I think Boston is stabilizing, and it’s going to stabilize further,’’ said Karl E. Case, a Wellesley College economics professor. “It’s not a major recovery yet, but it looks more like an upturn than a downturn.’’

Evidence of a recovery includes a new report on prices and sales from Warren Group, a Boston company that tracks real estate data. While median home prices and sales volumes fell in June, compared with the same month last year, the declines were in the single digits for the first time in 2009.

The median price for homes sold in June dropped 8 percent to $302,500 from $329,000 in June 2008, Warren Group reported. Sales declined 4.9 percent to 4,436 from 4,664 during the same month last year.

Timothy M. Warren Jr., the company’s chief executive, said the moderation in declines is an improvement over the steep drops reported earlier in the year. Median prices would be even higher if they were not depressed by the sales of foreclosed homes, he added. Foreclosures represented 6.5 percent of single-family home sales in the first six months of the year.

“Even though sales and prices are still sliding, June delivered the smallest year-over-year drop that we’ve seen so far in 2009,’’ Warren said. “This is good news.’’

Property values in some states have dropped as much as 50 percent in recent years. The S&P/Case-Shiller Prices Indices, which track housing values nationwide, show the Boston area hasn’t been hit as hard - with about a 19 percent decline since prices peaked in September 2005.

S&P/Case-Shiller data reported yesterday show that Boston-area homes increased in value by 1.6 percent in May, compared with April. The metropolitan area was one of seven that reported at least two consecutive months of increased housing values.

Nationally, housing values increased by about 0.5 percent in May - the first increase in 36 months, said Case, cofounder of the Case-Shiller report.

The Case-Shiller gauges are considered more accurate measures of home values because, unlike Warren Group reports, they track repeat sales.

The data coincide with an analysis by Alan Clayton-Matthews, an economic analyst and professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. He said home prices in Massachusetts have been on the rise since April, when seasonally adjusted for a traditional summer price increase.

“It seems like the bottom has been reached,’’ Clayton-Matthews said. “Of course, we will see if this continues in the months ahead.’’

Adding to the positive housing data, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reported yesterday that the number of single-family homes under agreement to be sold in June increased 5 percent from the same month last year.

Gary Rogers, the trade group’s president, said that’s a reason for optimism, despite concerns that lingering high unemployment may affect the vulnerable housing market.

“It is quite clear that the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit is helping to move the market in the right direction,’’ said Rogers, a broker at Re/Max First Realty in Waltham. “We still have a way to go.’’

Some communities - including Brookline, Sudbury, and Groton - showed a spike in median home prices over the first six months of the year, according to Warren Group. Areas hard hit by foreclosures, such as Lowell, Lynn, and Worcester, reported a drop in median home prices as sales volume increased.

Gary Dwyer, broker-owner of Buyer Agents of Boston, said buyers are becoming confident their purchases won’t lose value.

“They are saying they are not sure if we have hit bottom yet or not; they feel like we are pretty close,’’ Dwyer said. “It’s allaying some of the fears that people had.’’

Barry Bluestone, dean of the School of Social Sciences, Urban Affairs and Public Policy at Northeastern University, said the new data suggest that house prices probably won’t rise dramatically, but could edge upward over the next six months.

“Prices have fallen to a point where there are some real deals out there,’’ Bluestone said. “This may be a good time to get into the market before prices start rising again.’’

Jenifer McKim can be reached at jmckim@globe.com.