Maui's housing market mellowed a bit last month with relatively stable prices and another significant drop in the number of single-family home sales.

Condo sales — boosted by vacation investments — remained strong.

Some real-estate professionals say the slowing pace of single-family home sales is a healthy cooling for a market that has consistently led the state in median prices.

Maui, however, still remains a pretty pricey place to buy a home. January's median price was $698,750, meaning half sold for more than that and half for less.

The median was up 10.5 percent from $632,500 in January 2005, representing the smallest percentage-point increase in 11 months. Last month's price also was down from $722,500 in December, but was still the fifth-highest median on record.

The record came in May when median prices peaked at $780,000.

"I wouldn't say it's a buyers' market, but it's definitely evening out," said Keone Ball, president of the Realtors Association of Maui, which compiled the sales data. "To see the median price come down a little bit is not bad, in my book."

Ball, broker in charge at Carol Ball & Associates, said rising inventory has created more competition between sellers, who in the effort to attract buyers are less likely to list their properties for above-market prices.

"Two months ago, people could put their properties on (the market) and go for it," he said. "That was realistic. Now, instead of having three or five properties (to compete with), they have 10 or 15."

Despite higher inventory, there were fewer purchases of single-family homes — 76 last month, down 22 percent from 98 a year earlier. It was the lowest number of transactions for January since 2002 when there were 63 sales. The drop last month was the fourth consecutive monthly decline compared with the same month a year before.

For condos, there were 117 sales, up 18 percent from 99 a year earlier but still lower than sales in January 2003 and 2004.

The median condo price was $440,000. That was up just $10,000 from a year earlier and up from $400,000 in December. The median condo price for all of last year was $390,000.

Maui's median prices are often pushed to lofty levels by property sold at some of the state's toniest resorts. For instance, there were three single-family homes sold in the Wailea-Makena area last month. One sold for more than $9.2 million, and one sold for less.

The bulk of single-family homes were sold in Central Maui, where the median price was $610,000, or $5,000 less than single-family homes sold on O'ahu in January.

The largest number of condos was sold in Kihei. The median price for condos in Kihei was $420,000. That compared to O'ahu's condo median of $295,000.

Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com.