Jul. 1--A new report shows local home prices leveling out after three years of stunning declines, a potentially brief reprieve that some analysts worry could be washed out in another wave of foreclosures.

Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Index for San Diego County fell 0.1 percent in April from March. The index has fallen at a 10 percent annual rate since January, a contrast to an annualized decline of 25 percent over the preceding 18 months.

Case-Shiller, an artificial index composed of actual sales data, lags other measures of home-price data but is considered more thorough and accurate because it compares sale prices with prior sales of the same homes.

North County's median price, which represents the midpoint of sales each month, rose from $364,000 in March to $390,000 in April and $397,000 in May, according to the North San Diego County Association of Realtors. In most recent months, median prices had reflected large numbers of foreclosed homes that banks were discounting heavily for quick sales.

But the flow of newly foreclosed homes has ebbed in recent months as lenders and borrowers attempt to modify troubled mortgages, sometimes under pressure from state and federal governments. As a result, real estate analysts have said rising median prices have reflected the changing mix of houses that are selling.

Tuesday's Case-Shiller reading isn't skewed by that statistical quirk. Rather, buyers and real estate agents say broader shifts in supply and demand have handed real market power back to sellers. Having flooded into the market since last summer in response to lower prices, buyers are now scrapping over a shrinking number of listed houses, and bidding wars are common.

Seth Feinberg said he submitted offers on nearly 20 houses over the last year before closing escrow Monday on a 1,200-square-foot, three-bedroom townhouse in Encinitas's Village Park development. In some cases, he lost out to offers thousands of dollars above list prices. In at least one case, he said, the seller accepted a lower offer because it was all-cash, and thus less likely to run into complications with a lender.

"It's been a nightmare of an experience," said Feinberg, a first-time buyer who works for the biotech giant Genentech in Oceanside.

The report Tuesday showed "high tier" home prices, of $396,000 or more, as falling at an annual rate of just 7 percent from January to April, while "middle tier" prices fell at a 14 percent rate.