SENECA — Tri-county area real estate professionals sweated through a tough June in which sales plummeted nearly 33 percent from the same time a year ago, state market housing information released Thursday shows.

The numbers point to the realization that although the Upstate market has so far weathered the brunt of the national housing crisis, it has not completely been immune to the downturn.

According to statistics for June from South Carolina Realtors (SCR), 273 homes were sold in the Western Upstate Multiple Listing Service (MLS) area of Anderson, Oconee and Pickens counties. That’s a drop of 32.9 percent from June of 2007 when agents closed on 407 homes.

Through the first half of 2008, real estate professionals have sold 1,517 homes in the area, or 23.5 percent less than the 1,984 sales made during the same period in 2007.

The slow down in sales could easily be attributed to banks’ reluctance to dish out loans with the ease with which they were underwritten during the peak of the housing boom in 2005 and 2006.

In many cases, lenders were approving mortgage loans with little or no money down and through creative financing that some experts said is at the root of the foreclosure crisis sinking homeowners and banking institutions alike.

The state’s housing market report came out while the U.S. House of Representatives was passing sweeping legislation to shore up the sagging housing industry. The legislation, which President George Bush has agreed to sign once it is passed by the Senate on Saturday, would give the U.S. Treasury the power to protect mortgage monoliths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from collapse.

The housing bill also would authorize the Federal Housing Administration to insure up to $300 billion in refinanced loans for homeowners on the brink of foreclosure. The measure offers as many as 400,000 homeowners the opportunity to trade high-interest adjustable rate mortgages for low-rate 30-year, fixed-rate loans.

Nick Kremydas, SCR’s chief executive officer, was hopeful that federal action would help the South Carolina housing market rebound in the fourth quarter.

“We are optimistic that the passage of the housing stimulus bill, coupled with easing fuel process, will result in increased sales,” Kremydas said in a statement.

In the meantime, housing prices remained stable in the Upstate. The median price for homes sold in 2008 was $135,000, up 1.1 percent from a year ago. The median price is the point where half of homes sold for more and the other half sold for less.

Statewide the median price of homes sold was $154,000, which is 3.4 percent less than at this time in 2007.