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Sales of existing homes in Wisconsin fell 2.4% in July, but prices continued their modest recovery.

Real estate professionals downplayed the dip in sales compared with July of last year, noting that 2013 was a strong year for housing in the state and that there currently are a lot of home shoppers in the market.

"A 2% drop in a month, I don't think that's anything to get upset about," said Jim Smith, of W.E. Smith Realty Inc. in Appleton.

He added: "All we have to do is look back four years, and it's downright spectacular."

A report released Monday by the Wisconsin Realtors Association shows 7,240 home sales closed last month compared with 7,417 in July 2013.

At the same time, the median price paid for a home in the state was $158,700, a 2.4% gain from $155,000 in July last year.

Through the first seven months of 2014, sales were down 4.2% from the same period in 2013, while the median price was up 2.9%.

Steve Lane, chairman of the Wisconsin Realtors Association, noted that monthly sales comparisons to last year are tougher because 2013 was a strong year for home sales.

"For July home sales to be close to last year's strong showing indicates the current market is solid," Lane said in a statement.

The Realtors report shows sales dropped the most in south central Wisconsin, a region that includes Dane County, at 6.7%. But that region also had the biggest rise in median sale price, at 5.6%.

David Clark, a Marquette University economics professor who analyzes the sales and price data for the Realtors, said there is a good balance between sellers and buyers in the state's metropolitan markets, but it's more uneven elsewhere.

"The rural markets, there's still lots of inventory," Clark said.

Michael Theo, president and chief executive of the Wisconsin Realtors Association, said a recent survey by the national Realtors group found that 38% of homes were sold to first-time buyers, which was near the historical average of 40%.

"The recession and relatively slow recovery may have deferred the younger buyers' transition to owner-occupancy, but they haven't given up on the dream of owning a home," Theo said.

Smith said prices at the starter-home level have come up as the inventory of foreclosed homes has dwindled.

"What's happening now is that the bottom end of the market is getting stronger," Smith said. "People who own those properties are able to sell them because they can get a decent price for their houses. When they were competing with all the foreclosed property out there, it was driving down the bottom side of the market and sellers couldn't afford to sell."

Carla Scharf-Ewert, a broker and sales manager for Adashun Jones Real Estate in Fond du Lac, said the upper end of the price spectrum is seeing action, too.

"Two years ago lake properties were kind of slow, and now they're going gangbusters," she said. "It's every price range, up to almost $500,000. We've been really busy."