Despite what appears to be a healthy demand for multi-million-dollar homes, the real estate market on Cape Cod continued to slide in November, according to sales statistics released yesterday by the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds.

According to the registry data, which includes all sales valued over $50,000, the number of properties sold on the Cape fell by 18.9 percent in November compared with the same month last year. A total of 493 residential and commercial properties were sold last month compared with 608 in November 2005.

For the previous four months, however, the number of sales plunged between 26 percent and 34 percent in year-to-year comparisons.

In November, the median sale price also dropped compared with the same month in 2005, falling 3.8 percent to $355,000.

The median sale price may have been propped up to some extent by a number of luxury home sales, said John Meade, register of deeds for Barnstable County.

Although the total number of properties sold for the month dropped nearly 19 percent compared with November 2005, the number of sales valued over $1 million stayed nearly the same, at about 50, he said.

Realtors and some policy experts have predicted the state is nearing the bottom of the current real estate slump, and that relatively low interest rates and a growing economy will turn the market around by spring.

''A lot of the economic prognosticators are giving us optimistic signs that we could be reaching close to the end of the shaky period,'' said Annie Blatz, president-elect of the Cape Cod & Islands Association of Realtors and a branch executive for Kinlin Grover.

The Cape's cachet may help the area rebound more quickly than the rest of the state, Blatz said. While there has been an overabundance of properties on the market over the past year, the number is starting to decrease, indicating there are more buyers, she said.

''People want to buy on Cape Cod. They will buck the economic tendencies to purchase property here,'' Blatz said. ''If people wait till spring, they may be disappointed.''

However, a forecast by the New England Economic Partnership last month indicated that the state's real estate slowdown is only half over and may continue into 2008.

While jobs are being added and interest rates are relatively low, home prices simply aren't low enough yet to spur more demand, said the report's preparer, Alan Clayton-Matthews, a professor at the UMass-Boston McCormack Graduate School.

Based on previous boom-and-bust cycles, such as in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Clayton-Matthews said home affordability would have to be more in line with the rest of the country for the market to pick up. The median single-family home price in Massachusetts was about 8.5 times the state's per capita income, he said. For the rest of the country, the median price is about 6.5 times per capita income.

As another indicator that the state hasn't reached the bottom of the slump, ''We're also seeing the inventory of homes on the market still increasing,'' Clayton-Matthews said. ''That suggests prices aren't done adjusting.''

The November registry statistics come on the heels of a report by The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman, showing that single-family home sales fell in the first 10 months of the year. Statewide, sales fell by 15.13 percent when compared with the same period in 2005, and on the Cape they fell 21.82 percent.

Meanwhile, the median sale price for single-family homes during that period fell by 4.38 percent statewide and by 1.97 percent on the Cape.

As of November, the year-to-date median sale price for all properties on the Cape was $367,000 compared with $365,000 during the same period last year, according to the registry data.

''The million-dollar plus sales are the ones keeping the median price where it is, which is relatively flat,'' Meade said.

Published by Cape Cod Times - Christie Smythe

Published: December 2, 2006)