Nationwide home sales prices dropped in the first quarter – down 1.8 percent from a year ago.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area stood out in Texas as the only market in the state that suffered a decline, according to the National Association of Realtors quarterly home price survey.

Median home sales prices fell a scant 0.6 percent in D-FW during the first three months of 2007, the Realtors association said Tuesday.

More than a third of the U.S. housing markets that the Realtors surveyed saw drops in home prices during the quarter. It was the third consecutive quarter of lowering prices.

The biggest plunge in prices was in Elmira, N.Y., down almost 15 percent from a year ago.

Regionally, the largest home price softening was in the Midwest, down 2.8 percent, and the Northeast, down 2.5 percent.

All of Texas' major markets except Dallas-Fort Worth saw increases in prices in the quarter ending March 31.

Beaumont led the gains, with a 16.5 percent jump – third-highest in the nation. San Antonio prices were up 11.2 percent.

Officials with the Washington, D.C.-based Realtors group predict that the housing slowdown will soon bottom.

"It appears the worst of the price correction is behind us," Realtors president Pat Combs said in the first-quarter report.

Economists with the trade association have made similar predictions during recent months. Other industry economists and major homebuilders have been less sanguine in their forecasts.

But on a positive note, the nationwide decline in first-quarter home prices was a percentage point lower than in the fourth quarter of 2006.