The Warren Group of Boston reported yesterday that Rhode Island’s single-family house sales rose 3.6 percent in July from a year earlier, indicating the first increase in 17 months.

In Rhode Island, price cuts helped drive up sales. The median price of a single-family house in July fell 15.4 percent — to $234,000 — from a year earlier, marking the steepest decline since The Warren Group began tracking the data in 1989.

The Boston research firm’s findings follow a separate report by The Rhode Island Association of Realtors that said single-family house sales in July declined 4.9 percent from July of last year.

(The Realtors report only sales through real-estate agents and do not include sales by owners, which the Warren Group does include, and may account for the discrepancy.)

The Warren Group reported that 787 single-family houses were sold in July, up from 760 a year earlier. The increase, the report said, is in contrast to other New England states, where house sales continue to decline. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, for example, sales of single-family houses have declined for 11 straight months.

The Warren Group’s chief executive officer, Timothy Warren Jr., said in a statement, “We expect prices to drift lower for the balance of the year as homeowners continue to make concessions to attract buyers.”

July marked the fifth consecutive month in which prices of single-family houses in Rhode Island have fallen by double-digit percentages, he said.

In Providence, the median price of a single-family house in July was $206,000, down 18.35 percent from a year earlier, according to The Warren Group. There were 420 single-family houses sold in Providence in July, up from 368 sales in July of last year — and increase of 14.13 percent, the report said

The Association of Realtors previously reported that more than one in four single-family house sales in July — 26.3 percent — were foreclosure or “short” sales (designed to avoid foreclosure). The Realtors reported that the median price in July was $245,000, down 12.5 percent from July of last year. That’s $11,000 higher than the median sales price reported by The Warren Group.

Meanwhile, condo sales continued to decline. In July, 155 condos were sold, a 22.9-percent drop from the 201 sales in July of last year, according to The Warren group. The median price of a condo in July was $203,000, down from $225,000 a year earlier — a decline of 9.8 percent — the biggest drop since January.

larditi@projo.com