ST. GEORGE - Home prices in St. George have fallen by more than 4 per cent during the past 12 months, according to the First American CoreLogic LoanPerformance Home Price Index.

LoanPerformance HPI, which tracks price trends for repeat home sales, indicates that home prices for the St. George area during July 2008 were down by 4.12 percent compared to July 2007. The current median price of a home in St. George is $223,125.

Nationally, home prices fell by 7.7 percent for the period according to LoanPerformance, with a median price of $202,000.

Zip code 84780 topped the list for the highest home prices in St. George with a median price of $256,216; and zip code 84745 had the lowest median price at $156,505.

LoanPerformance HPI provides a multi-tier market evaluation based on price, time between sales, property type and loan type, conforming vs. nonconforming, for example.

Sales of single-family homes were down by 45.22 percent in St. George in July compared to the same time last year. According to First American CoreLogic, the number of new and existing home sales totaled 149 sales transactions for July 2008, compared to 272 in July 2007.

Of the total transactions, sales of new homes for July of this year totaled 24 and existing homes totaled 125 for the period.

Nationally, sales are down with transactions showing a 23 percent drop across the country during July compared to the same period a year ago.

Zip code 84770 had the most sales during the month of July, and zip code 84774 recorded the lowest number of sales.