This home at 77 Ford St., in Providence’s West End, was the lowest-price house on the Multiple Listing Service last week — on sale for $24,500. Prices for some abandoned properties can’t drop much lower.

The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

Real estate agent Rory O’Connor said he has finally received a couple of offers for a 1930 Colonial at 90 Althea St., a troubled street in Providence’s West End.

But because the listing is a short sale, meaning that the price will be below the outstanding mortgage on the property, the lender, not O’Connor’s client, will decide whether to accept any of the offers.

O’Connor’s client, who did not wish to be interviewed, bought the house in 2006 for $185,000, according to transaction records. The house is assessed for tax purposes at $182,800.

When O’Connor listed the property for sale two months ago, the price was $59,900, a number that failed to attract any offers. O’Connor said a price cut to $49,900 also left the market cold. But since the price was cut to $42,900, a couple of potential buyers have come forward.

“It’s what the market is willing to pay,” said O’Connor, an agent with Mastermind Realty Corp. of Cranston. He said two three-families sold recently on Althea Street; one for $45,000, and another for $51,000.

No one knows when this real estate downturn will finally hit bottom in Rhode Island, but in Providence, the prices for a number of properties on the market this summer don’t have much farther to drop. Some prices are closer to what many people would expect to pay for a car instead of a house.

The two lowest-price houses on the Multiple Listing Service in Providence last week were in the West End — $24,500 and $25,000.

There was a fire at the $25,000 house at 827 Potters Ave., and it needs a “complete rehab,” according to the listing information. The $24,500 house, a two-bedroom 1920 cottage at 77 Ford St., “needs work.”

The West End is not the only area in the city or the state experiencing the price depression inflicted by the foreclosure and credit crises. The two lowest-price condos listed for sale in Providence are in the north side, in the Charles neighborhood: units 3B and 2B at 21 Monticello St., listed at $8,500 and $14,900, respectively.

In Pawtucket’s desirable Oak Hill neighborhood, a bank-owned five-bedroom cottage at 59 Clifford St., owned by Nova Star Mortgage Inc., is on the market at $63,900. The house changed hands in June for $136,000, when the owner and the Nova Star “sold” it to Nova Star, according to transaction records. The house is assessed at $196,700.

Another of O’Connor’s bank-owned listings is a 1932 bungalow at 64 Grove Ave., in Cranston, which is assessed at $224,000. Today it’s on the market at $155,800.

Mark Van Noppen, whose Armory Revival Company has redeveloped many properties in Providence’s West Side, said his sense is that this market downturn in Providence is at the bottom, or close to it.

But historically, “the city has been in a lot worse shape than this,” he said. “Philosophically, it could still go further, because where we were in 1980 was lower than this in that there were more abandoned houses; there were larger sections of neighborhoods that were abandoned.”

In 1980, Van Noppen added, “SWAP [Stop Wasting Abandoned Properties, a Providence nonprofit agency] would give you houses for $1,000 and give you a grant to fix them up.”

Van Noppen said his company’s real estate brokerage, Armory Properties, has seen an uptick in activity from last year.

In the spring of last year, more buyers were staying “on the sidelines,” he said, but this spring, the agents in his office were “actually closing things.”

Buyers “feel like things have dropped a lot,” he said. “The wisdom in real estate is you buy low, sell high,” Van Noppen added. “…This is how I got started. I bought in a time like this.”

The Rhode Island Association of Realtors recently reported that June sales statistics showed, for the third month in a row, an increase in pending sales of single-family houses.

Falling real estate prices may finally be attracting buyers who have been waiting for a deal, but the credit crisis may be stopping some buyers from closing one.

The Statewide Housing Action Coalition reports that nonprofit developers are having trouble selling their new affordable houses, townhouses and condominiums.

“One of the many negative side effects that the rapid increase in foreclosures has had on our work and our neighborhoods is an inability to sell some of the affordable homes that members have developed,” Brenda J. Clement said in a prepared statement for the coalition. “This has never happened before. Usually, members have not been able to build houses fast enough. While demand and interest in these homes is still pretty high, more and more potential buyers are having difficulty obtaining credit to acquire homes.”

cdunn@projo.com