The string of declines - volume fell 31.74 percent in October and 29.72 percent in September - is the most severe recorded by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, which began tracking sales through the multiple-listing service in 1999. The region's biggest decline was in Anne Arundel County, where sales skidded nearly 42 percent.

The average sales price in Baltimore and the five surrounding counties notched down a fraction of a percentage point, to $308,477 from $309,753 a year earlier. It was the region's first drop in average value since August and only the third monthly price decline this year. Despite slower sales and the credit crisis, prices in the region have held up.

Some have argued in past months that the steep drop in sales is caused at least in part by the fairly stable prices, though there's so much at work in the market that it's difficult to prove cause and effect.

"There are some buyers - not as many as there were two years ago. But for the most part, people have just stepped back and are waiting - it's unclear what they're waiting for," said Jane Rowley, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker in Federal Hill. "There's that expectation that [prices] are going to go down, or have gone down, and that sellers will accept very low bids. That's not actually what's happening."

On a more positive note for people trying to sell: The number of unsold homes has stopped rising -- it's down nearly 1,000 from October. (But, as Mirabella notes in her story, at 19,500 listings, "inventory levels are nearly double that of two years ago.")