Prices of single-family houses in Rhode Island in July were down 4.1 percent from the same month last year, according to The Warren Group, a real-estate research firm in Boston.

The median price in July fell to $268,500, compared with $280,000 in July of last year. Single-family house prices have been down every month from the comparable period last year for the last 12 months except for March , when the median price remained unchanged.

Monthly prices tend to fluctuate, say real-estate experts, so a more accurate measure of the market is to look at price changes over longer periods. For example, the median price for all single-family house sales in Rhode Island during the first seven months of this year was down a more modest 2.8 percent, to $262,500, The Warren Group reported. (The data is for homes sold by owners as well as those sold through real-estate agents.)

Sales, overall, showed some improvement during the first seven months of this year, rising 1.7 percent, to 1,447, compared with the same seven-month period last year.

In July, single-family house sales fell 4.4 percent, to 820, compared with 858 sales in July of last year.

“Steady sales and price declines in states like Rhode Island and Massachusetts have become almost the norm,” The Warren Group’s chief executive officer Timothy J. Warren Jr. said in a statement.

Even so, the price and sales declines in Rhode Island have been “modest,” Warren said, “and we’ve seen a small jump in condo sales.”

Sales of condos in July fell 4.2 percent from the same month last year, but so far this year condo sales are up 1.7 percent, the report said. There were 1,447 condo sales this year, compared with 1,423 sales during the first seven months of last year. In July, 207 condos were sold, compared with 216 in July of last year.

Condo prices, however, continued to fall. The median price of a condo went down 2.5 percent in July to $224,200, compared with $230,000 in July of last year. The median price for all sales during the first seven months of the year was down 4.3 percent, to $225,000.

In January, it appeared the year was starting strong in Rhode Island, with monthly single-family house sales up 16.6 percent, but it represented only 590 sales during the month. In February, sales were up 7.1 percent, from 536 sales in February of last year to 574 in this year.

“So it looked good at the beginning of the year, but since then we’re seeing more declines,” said Katie Curnutte, a spokeswoman for The Warren Group. “It’s really a correction.”

The Warren Group’s chief executive predicted that Rhode Island “probably won’t see much change in the market during the rest of this year.”

In Massachusetts, prices of single-family houses in July fell 4.6 percent from the same month last year, and down 4.7 percent for the first seven months of the year.

Sales of single-family houses in Massachusetts were up 1.5 percent for the month, but down 5.3 percent over the last seven months.

Massachusetts’ condo sales in July were down 1.3 percent from the same month a year ago, and the median price of a condo was off 0.9 percent, to $280,000, The Warren Group reported. That represents a price decline of 3 percent during the first seven months of this year.

In Connecticut, the housing market appears to be performing better, with prices increasing. Some counties in Connecticut are “driven by the New York real-estate market more than New England,” Curnutte said, “but even the ones that aren’t connected to the New York market” are doing better.

larditi@projo.com