Rhode Island’s falling real-estate prices enticed more buyers in October, with single-family house sales recording their biggest increase in nearly four years, according to two separate reports released today.

The Rhode Island Association of Realtors reported that existing single-family houses sold through real-estate agents in October rose 15 percent from the same month last year.

The Warren Group, a real-estate research firm in Boston, reported separately that house sales in October rose 11 percent from a year earlier. (The Warren Group includes sales by owners, which are not part of the Realtors’ data.)

October marked the first month since November 2004 that single-family house sales climbed more than 10 percent, according to The Warren Group.

Meanwhile, prices continued to tumble.

The Warren Group reported the median single-family house price in October fell to $211,000, down 15.3 percent from a year earlier. The Realtors reported that the median price fell 18.7 percent, to $215,000.

The vast majority of October’s single-family house sales –– 72 percent — were “conventional sales” which were not the result of foreclosures or borrowers selling to avoid foreclosure, according to the Realtors.

Another positive sign is that inventory shrank. Single-family house listings fell in October to 6,117, down 5.4 percent from the same month last year, according to the Realtors and The Statewide Multiple Listing Service. At the current pace of sales, it would take 11 months to sell all the single-family houses listed with real-estate agents, according to The Journal’s analysis of the data. That’s down from 13 months earlier this year.

Paul Leys, president of the Rhode Island Association of Realtors, said that October’s sales increase is a “clear indication” that while Rhode Island got into the housing market downturn early, it also will be “among the first states to be coming out of it.”

But others were less optimistic. The Warren Group’s chief executive officer, Timothy Warren Jr., said that while “lower prices are helping move properties off the market,” it’s important to remember that the October data is based on sales that were negotiated three to four months ago, “before the stock market collapse and before thousands of job layoffs were announced.”

Despite the increased interest among buyers, October’s sales remain well below the average of 803 house sales in October from 2000 through 2005, according to an analysis of the Realtors’ data.

So far this year, there were 5,790 single-family houses sold in the state, down 13.6 percent from the 6,702 sold during the same period last year, The Warren Group reported. The median house price has fallen 12.3 percent since January, the report said.

In Providence, the median sales price for single-family houses in October was $123,500, according to the Realtors. The lowest median price in the state was $119,900 in Central Falls. The highest was in Little Compton, where the median price of the two houses sold in October was $1.057 million.

Dramatic price cuts also continued to fuel sales of multifamily houses. In October, sales of multi-family houses more than doubled — up 124.4 percent — from a year earlier, according to the Realtors. The median price plunged 49.1 percent, to $116,000, from $228,000 in October of last year.

Three out of four multifamily houses sold during the month — 74.6 percent — were foreclosures or short sales, in which a property is sold for less than what is owed on the mortgage in order to avoid foreclosure.

By contrast, sales of condominiums fell 41.8 percent in October from a year earlier, with 13.4 percent of the condos sold in foreclosure or through a short sale. The median condo price in October rose to $227,500, up 2.9 percent from a year earlier, the Realtors reported.

larditi@projo.com