Home prices, sales on rise in Boston area

June home prices were a strong 2.6 percent above the previous month, and the number of single-family homes that sold statewide in July was a whopping 12 percent higher than a year ago. While these data come from different sources, and measure different components of the real estate market, they point to a market that is heading upward.

Housing industry specialist Karl E. Case, a professor of economics at Wellesley College, said the Boston market is “bottoming out.’’ He noted that the housing index he cofounded, the S&P/Case-Shiller home price indexes, showed several months of prices increasing in Greater Boston.

“That’s significant,’’ Case said.

For months, industry representatives and specialists have wistfully pointed to a combination of ideal factors that they argued should have long ago sparked a recovery in housing sales: record low mortgage rates, steep price declines, and a government tax credit for first-time buyers.

But such predictions did not account for the human factor: Buyers were afraid to commit if the slump was going to continue and make the home they bought today worth less tomorrow.

Now though, with federal officials declaring that the economy itself has hit bottom and is showing signs of life, and consumer confidence rising slightly, buyers apparently feel there is less risk in committing to a home purchase.

“People are no longer worried about writing a check because prices are going to plummet,’’ said John Neale, a partner at Sprogis & Neale Real Estate, which markets condos and town houses in Boston’s South End, Back Bay, and Beacon Hill neighborhoods.

The strongest indicator on Massachusetts came yesterday from the S&P/Case-Shiller indexes, which many in the real estate market consider to be the best barometer of housing prices because they measures repeat sales. The indexes follow home sales in 20 US metropolitan areas, including Boston, and also create a national measuring stick.

In the Boston area, the 2.6 percent price gain in June follows a 1.6 percent increase in May and a slight rise in April. Together those three months account for the heart of the real estate industry’s peak selling period.

“This could be the beginning of the end’’ of the slump, said Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. “It’s not quite the ninth inning - it’s the eighth inning. We’re close but not quite ready to get out the balloons.’’

The S&P/Case-Shiller index for Greater Boston has previously captured month-to-month surges in home prices during the slump, only to report later that prices again fell. But this time, the price increases are accompanied by other supporting data to suggest a broader-based recovery is underway.

For example, home prices in the rest of the country are also up: All but two of the 20 metro areas in the S&P/Case-Shiller grouping showed higher prices in June compared with May. Moreover, prices nationally increased in the second quarter of 2009 compared with the first quarter, the first such rise in three years, according to Standard & Poor’s.

Still, even with the recent uptick, home prices in Greater Boston are down 16 percent from their peak of September 2005.

Another key indication is the 12 percent increase in single-family homes sold in Massachusetts during July compared with July 2008, according to Warren Group, which tracks real estate sales statewide. One huge catalyst for the surge in activity, industry specialists said, comes directly from home sellers: After seeing their own home, or other houses, sit on the market unsold for months, they have lowered asking prices to the point where buyers respond.

At the start of 2009, “buyers were sitting on the sidelines,’’ said Bill Wendel, owner of the Real Estate Cafe, an online buyers’ service in Cambridge. “Then sellers cut their prices, and buyers came out.’’

And that may have created a snowball effect, added David Drinkwater, president of Grand Gables Realty Group Inc. in Scituate. When it comes to buying in a tough market, no one wants to be the “first one in the pool,’’ he said; but after seeing increased activity in recent months, more buyers have gotten up their courage and taken the plunge.

To be sure, there are enough other weak spots in the real estate market, and the upward trend itself is so short that some industry representatives said it pays to remain cautious: The condo market in Massachusetts is still soft, with total sales in July below those of July 2008, according to Warren Group. Retsinas cautioned that things could still sour. Continuing job losses, an unexpected downturn in the economy, rising interest rates - all could hurt the local housing market.

Warren Group also reported that the median price for single-family homes sold in July fell 4.7 percent, to $305,000 from $320,000 in July 2008. Still that’s a far slower rate of decline than earlier in the year, when prices fell by double-digit percentages in each of the first five months of 2009.

However, median home prices can be influenced by the different mixes of properties that are sold in the periods being compared, and so are considered a less accurate measure of price trends than the S&P/Case-Shiller indexes.

Chris Reidy can be reached at reidy@globe.com. Katie Johnston Chase can be reached at johnstonchase@globe.com.