Dallas-Fort Worth home prices were down by just a whisker in the latest gauge of the U.S. housing market.

D-FW home prices fell 0.6 percent in October from a year earlier in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Index released Tuesday.

The dip in local home prices was half the size of the decline reported a month earlier and the lowest year-over-year drop since October 2007.

The D-FW decline was also one of the lowest in the country and a fraction of the 7.3 percent overall price drop in the 20 cities that Case-Shiller measures each month. It was the 19th month of nationwide price decreases.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, D-FW prices were flat in October.

Although D-FW prices are down only slightly over the last two years, nationwide prices have declined almost 30 percent from the peak in the Case-Shiller index.

North Texas' housing market has outperformed the nation's because prices here were not overinflated, as they were in many markets, experts say. And the Texas economy – despite recent declines – has outpaced the rest of the country.

While home price statistics continue to improve in North Texas, that isn't the case in some of the nation's housing markets, Case-Shiller analysts said.

"The turnaround in home prices seen in the spring and summer has faded, with only seven of the 20 cities seeing month-to-month gains," Standard & Poor's David M. Blitzer said Tuesday in the report.

Some cities are seeing huge year-over-year slides in home values. In Las Vegas, prices were down 26.6 percent. Prices were off 18.1 percent in Phoenix.

Denver had the smallest annual decline – just 0.1 percent.

The new Case-Shiller report supports statistics that show the worst is over in the North Texas housing market.

In November, North Texas median home sales prices were up 5 percent from a year earlier according to statistics from the North Texas Real Estate Information Systems Inc.

And sales of pre-owned homes through the Realtors' Multiple Listing Service have risen by double digits in recent months.

Pre-owned home sales prices in North Texas were flat during the first 11 months of 2009, according to MLS statistics.

But home prices are still below the peaks set in 2007 – down about 5 percent in the Case-Shiller index.

Some market watchers had hoped to see a rebound by now in D-FW home prices.

"While most in the housing industry believe that the worst is behind us, the expectation is that the recovery will continue to be gradual," said Ted Wilson of Dallas-based housing analyst Residential Strategies Inc. "Current housing demand is being artificially stimulated through the tax credit program and low mortgage rates."

Wilson said that underlying housing demand "is still weak and will remain weak until job growth picks up. The good news is that housing inventory levels [in North Texas] have remained fairly balanced throughout the downturn, and that has gone a long way to keeping prices relatively stable."

Case-Shiller tracks the prices of typical single-family homes in each metropolitan area. The index does not include condominiums and townhouses. It covers only pre-owned properties – no new construction.

The Case-Shiller researchers compare sales of specific properties over time.