BOULDER - Home prices in Boulder County depreciated annually for the first time in 21 years, according to the latest figures from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The agency, which tracks conforming loans and refinances across the nation's metropolitan statistical areas, said home prices decreased 0.56 percent year-over-year in Boulder County during the third quarter.

The home-price drop was the first since a 1.03 percent annual decline during the second quarter of 1988, and only the seventh quarterly annual drop in Boulder County history since the figures were first tracked in 1979. In the past five years, Boulder County home prices are up 11.67 percent, according to the agency.

Nationwide, home prices fell 2.4 percent on an annual basis in the third quarter.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency figures represent average house-price changes in repeat sales or refinancings of the same single-family properties. The database includes more than 38 million repeat transactions obtained from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which form the nation's largest database of conventional, conforming mortgage transactions.

The conforming loan limit for mortgages purchased since January 2006 has been $417,000, with limits as high as $729,750 in some areas since the latter half of 2007.