A pricing correction swept throughout the greater Capital Region last month for the first time since May, according to statistics released today by the Greater Capital Association of Realtors.

Amid a worsening credit crunch, rising unemployment and Wall Street’s gyrations, the region's median sale price last month fell to $197,500 from $201,000 a year earlier. The posted pricing reversal contradicts a claim made a week ago by National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun, who told a crowd of real estate agents in Saratoga Springs that upstate’s housing market was “whacked” and “undervalued by any standard.”

August’s lower home values did little to help closed single-family sales, which over the year plunged 20 percent to 851. Sales for the first eight months were down 16 percent, to 5,530, compared to the same period of 2007.

Schenectady did not, as usual, bear the brunt of the housing slump, as its median sale price for August inched up over the year by 1 percent, to $176,000, though sales were off 9 percent. Instead, the market’s pain concentrated on Albany County, which was hit with a 6 percent pricing correction that sent the median sale price down to $202,500, while sales dipped 8 percent.

Saratoga County home values rose by 2 percent, to $260,900, in the face of a 25 percent sales decline.

Nationwide, single-family home sales last month totaled 4.35 million, down 9.6 percent from a year earlier. The nation’s median sale price fell 9.7 percent, to $201,900.

NAR officials largely blamed August's sluggishness on higher interest rates and tighter credit markets, which raised challenges for even creditworthy borrowers. But Yun reiterated the hope he expressed last week in Saratoga that the U.S. Treasury Department’s seizure of mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will help knock down rates.