Fewer people bought houses in York County, and they paid less for them in the first quarter of 2008.

The number of homes sold in the first quarter of 2008 dropped 24 percent compared to the same period of 2007, according to statistics released Wednesday by the Realtors Association of York & Adams Counties.

The average sale price dropped $5,600, from $168,500 in 2007 to $162,900 this year.

Steve Snell, executive officer of RAYAC, said the numbers show that York County is subject to the same financial market influences as the rest of the country.

"The local (real estate) slowdown is more moderate than other areas," he said. "We view these statistics as being pretty solid."

Snell said it's "unrealistic and dangerous" to expect the numbers to go up every year.

The numbers are a comparison of home sales from Jan. 1 through March 31 for 2007 and 2008, arranged by school district.

Biggest drop: Southern York was the school district with the largest drop in sales. Seventy-five houses sold during the first three months of the year in 2007, compared to 26 this year, a 65 percent drop.

Snell said properties closest to the Mason-Dixon line are being affected the most by higher gas prices and the slower real estate market. The median value of a home in Southern fell more than $24,000, from $249,900 in 2007 to $225,500 in 2008.

But despite the decreases, Southern still has the highest median home sale price among York County school districts, Snell

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said.

The Dallastown Area School District saw the greatest decrease in median sale price between the first quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008 -- from $215,000 to $185,000. The number of sales also decreased by 34 percent, from 119 in 2007 to 79 in 2008.

But there was good news for some areas, including Dallastown's neighbor and rival, which bucked the county trend.

Despite a national and local trend to the opposite, the median sale price in Red Lion Area School District has increased by
$8,100 from last year to this year.

Price gains were also made in Dover, Hanover, West York and York City, and the number of sales increased in Eastern, Hanover and West Shore.

Snell said the current market can be put in perspective by looking at the overall gains in recent years.

For example, there were a comparable number of homes sold in the first quarters of 2001 and 2008. But the median price has gone up 53 percent countywide since 2001, he said.

"That continues to speak loudly to the investment potential of owning your own home," he said.

--Reach Christina Kauffman at 505-5436 or ckauffman@yorkdis patch.com.