Aug. 27--North Texas continues to fare better than other parts of the country as the housing slump deepens nationwide, according to two reports released Tuesday.

Home prices in all 20 metro areas that the S&P/Case-Shiller index measures fell in June, compared with the same period a year ago.

But while North Texas prices dropped from the same month a year ago, it's still the second-best area for home sales, after Charlotte, N.C.

The housing-price index for North Texas and Charlotte actually has increased every month since February, according to the index. Denver and Boston have increased consecutively since March, while Minneapolis and Atlanta have increased since April. These are the only six metro areas out of the 20 surveyed that have had increases for more than two months.

"What we take away from that is we may be experiencing a slight fluctuation in our home values, but as a general rule, we are flat," said Cassie Gibson of Residential Strategies, a housing-activity tracking firm in Dallas. "We're not seeing huge gains, but we're also not losing value."

North Texas, with a 3.2 percent drop, had the second-smallest decline in home prices compared with the year before, after Charlotte's 1 percent drop. The steepest declines came in Las Vegas, 28.6 percent; Miami, 28.3 percent; and Phoenix, 27.9 percent.

A year ago, many banks tightened lending standards to the point that it was more difficult to get funding to buy a home. That increased the inventory of new and existing homes on the market.

But part of North Texas' resilience stems from having tighter inventory than other parts of the U.S., Gibson said.

North Texas has 6.3 months of new-home inventory, close to what is considered a balanced market of six months, Gibson said. By comparison, the rest of the country has an average of 10 months' supply.

The housing market has been finding a new base line since the credit crunch last fall, Gibson said. The market is still working in a new environment of increased credit tightening.

Another report, released Tuesday by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, also cited North Texas' buoyancy in a sinking national market.

In the past year, prices have fallen 4.8 percent nationwide, according to the second-quarter report, which measures conventional loans made through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The drop is the steepest in the government index's 17-year history.

But Fort Worth-Arlington saw a 3.08 percent increase in appreciation.

The discrepancy between the S&P/Case-Shiller and the housing-office numbers can be attributed to the scope of the area covered and the types of loans considered, Gibson said.

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