The registry statistics include all recorded real estate sales of property valued at more than $50,000. Because of the amount of time involved in closing real estate sales, numbers for August actually indicate activity in July.

Register of Deeds John Meade said the drop in sales and prices in the August statistics was expected given the direction of the market and because summer is historically a slower period for real estate than spring or fall.

''July tends to be a quiet month for real estate activity. Everyone's at the beach,'' Meade said.

But he added that the market does appear to be pulling back from ''the incredibly hot level of activity that marked the beginning of the 2000s.''

''My guess is we're going to see things start to pick up as the year ends,'' he said.

So far this year, according to the registry's numbers, March showed the most resilience with sales dropping only 8.7 percent compared with the same month last year. The median price also posted a slight gain at $354,900 compared with $352,500 in March 2005.

In July, the median sale price held fairly steady at $365,000 compared with $365,371 in the same month last year, but the number of sales dropped by a steep 31.4 percent.

August statistics from the Cape Cod & Islands Association of Realtors will not be released until later this month. But according to July statistics from the Realtors, which track sales listed with the Cape Cod & Islands Multiple Listing Service, single-family home sales were down nearly 30 percent that month compared with July 2005. The average sale value for the month was off by 6.9 percent at $499,498 compared with $536,628 last July.

Meade said he does not expect that the real estate slowdown will be permanent.''My expectation is that barring a huge increase in interest rates, or some other economic calamity, things will start moving along pretty good here.''

Source: Cape Cod Times by Staff Writer, Christie Smythe