Home sales were up in Phoenix during the month of February, and it was the first time since January 2007 that the overall median price for the market didn’t decline year-over-year, according to MDA DataQuick.

There were a total of 6,824 new and resale houses and condos sold in the Maricopa-Pinal counties metropolitan area in February, up 9.6% from January and up 13% from February 2009. A rise in sales between January and February is typical for the market, and since 1994, Phoenix has experienced an average 9.4% increase between the two months.

February’s sales total was the highest for the month of February since 2007, when 8,940 homes sold. Existing home sales were the highest for the month of February since 2006. As for new construction, the number of newly built homes sold in February rose 17% compared to January, but was down 14.6% from 2009. New home sales accounted for 9.5% of total sales, compared to 8.9% in January and 12.5% last year, a sign that builders continue to struggle to compete with low-cost foreclosures, DataQuick said.

Foreclosure resales accounted for more than half of all Phoenix resales, but the 51.3% shares was down from a 52.1% share in January and down from the February 2009 share of 65.1%. DataQuick said foreclosure resales peaked in March 2009 at 66.2% of all home sales.

In addition, new foreclosure activity dipped in February. There were 4,635 single-family house and condo units foreclosed on in the Phoenix market, down 6.2% from January and 18.4% from last year.

The median price paid for all new and resales homes and condos was $135,000, up 2.63% from $131,540 in January and even with February 2009. It’s the first time in 36 months that the median did not decline on a year-over-year basis, however, February’s median was down 1.1% from the December 2009 median of $136,500 and 48.9% below the peak median of $264,100 in June 2006. The median price in Phoenix bottomed out in April 2009 at $125,000.

The median price for existing home sales was $131,900, up 1.5% from $130,000 in January and up 5.5% from last year, but 50.8% less than the June 2006 peak of $268,000. The median paid for resale condos in February was $91,500, down from $95,000 in January and down 22.9% from a year earlier. It was 50.9% lower than its April 2007 peak of $186,500.

DataQuick said 43.7% of all Phoenix-area purchase mortgages were government-insured Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgages. In addition, absentee buyers — typically investors, but anyone who indicated at the time of sale that the tax bill should be mailed to a different address — purchased 41.2% of all homes sold in February, up from 39.1% in January. The median price for absentee buyers was $114,500.

Cash deals, those transactions where public property records did not indication of a purchase loan recorded at the time of sale, took a 43.6% share of all sales, up from 40.6% in January. The median price for cash buyers was $105,00.

The rate of homes that were sold in February that had previously been sold anywhere from three weeks to six months ago was 3.3%, even with January. A year ago, the flipping rate was 2.1%.

Write to Austin Kilgore.

Conventional mortgage rates continued to rise in February, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) monthly rate report (download here).

The average interest rate entered on a conventional 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) of $417,000 or less ticked up 3 basis points (bps) in February to 5.13%, from 5.1% in January.

The average rate on 15-year FRMs rose 11bps to 4.65% in February, FHFA said. The average contract rate on all loans — fixed- and adjustable-rate mortgages — rose 4bps to 5.03% in February.

The national average contract mortgage rate inched up to a level seen in February 2009:

FHFA calculated these average rates based on purchase-only mortgage loans closed during the February 22-26 period. Because interest rates are typically determined 30-45 days before loan closing, these rates represent market conditions prevailing in mid- to late-January.

In a separate report, FHFA said that in January the national average contract mortgage rate for the purchase of previously occupied homes was 5.05%, up 4bps from 5.01% in December. This rate is commonly used to adjust ARM rates and previously was the only index rate that federally chartered savings and loan associations could use as an adjustable-rate mortgage index in the early 1980s, FHFA said.

Write to Diana Golobay.

Home prices in January 2010 showed only minimal decline from a year earlier, according to the latest Standard & Poor’s (S&P)/Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index.

The annual declines in the 10-city and 20-city composites show improvement from December's declines, but mixed results underscore the threat of a double dip in house prices.

The 10-city index showed no change from January 2009, and the 20-city index declined only 0.7% during the same time. S&P/Case-Shiller notes in the latest report that annual rates for the two composites have not been so close to "a positive print" in three years, since January 2007. Both indices showed seasonally unadjusted declines and are back to their autumn 2003 levels:

“While we continue to see improvements in the year-over-year data for all 20 cities, the rebound in housing prices seen last fall is fading," said David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the S&P Index Committee, in a press statement. "Fewer cities experienced month-to-month gains in January than in December 2009, on both a seasonally adjusted and unadjusted basis.”

Blitzer is not the only one seeing mixed results in the January report.

Paul Dales, the US economist at Toronto-based Capital Economics, notes in e-mailed commentary that although house prices on the 20-city composite have yet to reverse recent increases, "it is only a matter of time before the index records a double-dip in prices, much like that already seen on the alternative [Federal Housing Finance Agency] FHFA measure."

Dales pointed out the 0.4% monthly decline in the seasonally unadjusted 20-city composite index from December 2009 — the fourth fall in as many months. But a "normal softness" in the market meant seasonally adjusted prices rose 0.3% in the same time — the eighth increase in as many months, according to Dales.

"This run-up in prices primarily reflects the increase in sales generated by the [first-time homebuyer] tax credit towards the end of last year, which reduced the excess supply," he said. "The real test for the market will therefore come when the tax credit expires at the end of June. At that point, we think that demand will fall back and foreclosures will continue to boost supply."

Dales added: "Such a toxic combination will push prices lower again. The FHFA index, which fell in the two months to January, suggests these trends may have already begun to weigh on prices even before the tax credit has expired."

Capital Economics projects prices on the Case-Shiller measure to fall back by at least 5%, undermining the "still fragile household sector" as well as the strength and sustainability of the overall economic recovery seen so far, Dales said.

As of January 2010, S&P/Case-Shiller said average home prices are now at similar levels seen in the autumn of 2003. The 10-city composite fell 33.5% and the 20-city composite fell 32.6% from the peak in June and July 2006 to the April 2009 trough. The peak-to-date differences through January 2010 are -30.2% and -29.6% respectively.

Write to Diana Golobay.

Disclosure: the author holds no relevant investment positions.