Home sales chugged along at a brisk pace last month as falling prices attracted buyers to the region's lower-cost neighborhoods.

Buyers purchased 23 percent more homes in February than the same month a year earlier as prices continued to fall, reported the North San Diego County Association of Realtors in a release Friday.

The median price per square foot for all houses sold -- meaning half sold for more and half for less -- in February was $191 per square foot, down 25 percent from $256 per square foot a year ago. Since a peak in 2006, median prices have fallen by 42 percent to $364,900.

In Southwest Riverside County, the trend was even more pronounced, with sales jumping more and prices tumbling further. There, the number of houses sold jumped 88 percent and the average price fell 33 percent from a year ago -- bringing the decline from that region's 2006 peak to 51 percent, according to statistics compiled from the Multi-Regional Multiple Listing Service. Last month, the average price of a house was $243,491.

It was the sixth straight month for large, year-over-year jumps in North County home sales and the 14th straight month for such increases in Southwest Riverside County.

Meanwhile, prices have been falling for more than two years.

"We're looking at price ranges now that we haven't seen since 2002," said Robert Brown, a professor at Cal State San Marcos who compiles the Realtors report, known as HomeDex.

And the contagion of foreclosures and falling prices have started to spread into North County's more desired markets, according to the report.

"In the last few months, we've seen price declines in those upper-end areas we had not seen six months ago," Brown said.

Foreclosures have led price declines throughout the region's housing crisis and appear to be leading the recent bump in sales activity.

Sales of homes priced more than $1 million were down from a year ago, according to the report.

"That's a very quiet part of the market," said Jerry Kalman, a real estate agent in Fallbrook. And buyers demand deals in the high-end market because "they know they're working a corner of the market that's underpopulated."

Kalman's analysis of Fallbrook and Bonsall showed that roughly three-quarters of sales in those markets were either foreclosures or short sales, in which banks agree to sell the property for less than the loan amount.

Most of last month's sales were clustered along the Highway 78 corridor in North County, where most of the region's foreclosures have hit. In Southwest Riverside County, foreclosures have flooded the entire region from Temecula through Lake Elsinore.

The foreclosures have attracted a crush of first-time buyers, sending up sales numbers on both houses and condos. Buyers snatched up 42 percent more attached homes last month than a year earlier in North County and 191 percent more in Southwest Riverside.

Economists say such an increase in sales is typically the first step to a recovery, yet the region's housing market has a long way to go.

On Thursday, a report showed that more than 1,200 homes entered foreclosure in North County and 1,500 in Southwest Riverside County. That means there were more homeowners defaulting on their mortgages than new buyers entering the market.

Also, it appears the housing market will not act as a source of jobs for a while. Traditionally, most of the jobs created by housing come from construction.

A separate report also released Friday showed that -- even though sales overall have jumped -- new home sales lagged in January.

The California Building Industry Association reported that new home sales in San Diego County fell to 101 sales in January, down 69 percent from a year ago. There were 354 new home sales in the Riverside-San Bernardino metro area, down 56 percent from a year ago.

Contact staff writer Zach Fox at (760) 740-5412 or zfox@nctimes.com. Read his blog at bizblogs.nctimes.com.