Statewide, the median price for a single-family home in July was $294,230, a decrease of less than 1 percent from the previous month and 7.6 percent below July 2010 prices.

It is hard to tell how much of the price differences between this year and the last are the result of market factors and how much are the result of tax incentives that bolstered activity through last summer, said Robert Kleinhenz, the deputy chief economist for the California Association of Realtors.

Whatever the case, Realtors now expect California home sales to fall just short of last year's activity, when nearly 495,000 homes were sold, Kleinhenz said.

The association tallies sales of homes that have had at least one owner, not new developments.

In the Inland Empire, July's median price $172,290 was slightly below June's price and 6.1 percent less than July 2010's price.

Realtors in the Los Angeles area, however, saw median prices climb 1.3 percent to $279,700 from June to July.

On a year-over-year basis, however, home prices in the Los Angeles metropolitan area fell 5.3 percent in July.