ST. JOSEPH — Two-hundred seventy-three homes sold in October in Southwest Michigan, continuing a trend of six continuous months where 250 or more homes were sold within a month, according to Gary Walter, executive vice president of the Southwestern Michigan Association of Realtors Inc.

“The October number of houses sold was up 37 percent over October 2011, when only 199 houses were sold,” Walter said.  “Every month this year, the number of houses sold has substantially beat 2011 monthly numbers with the exception of June and August when the numbers sold varied by just six houses. Year-to-date the number of houses sold was up 23 percent.

“Increased sales kicked the October total dollar volume up 46 percent,” he said.  “At the start of the last quarter of the year, the year-to-date total dollar volume was just shy of $400 million and up 30 percent over where we were at in 2011. At this point, the housing market dollar total volume has climbed back to where it was in 2008.”

The average selling price in October at $158,349 was up 6 percent over October 2011.

Year-to-date the average selling price was up 6 percent over last year at $167,216.

With more houses selling at lower prices, the median-selling price fell to $107,000 in October from $109,900 a year ago. The year-to-date median selling price was 5 percent above last year at $105,000.

The median price is the price at which 50 percent of the homes sold were above that price and 50 percent were below.

Nationally, sales of existing homes increased in October, even with some regional impact from Hurricane Sandy, while home prices continued to rise due to lower levels of inventory supply, according to the National Association of Realtors.