JoAnne Vigil Coppler has a short refrain for those waiting for the Santa Fe real-estate market to come back before trying to sell a house.

"It's going to be a very, very long time, if ever," said Coppler, Santa Fe Association of Realtors board president, who on Wednesday released sales data for the first quarter of 2011.

The data show the market slogging along with about the same number of home sales closed as last year, and a countywide median price of $355,000 for a single-family sale — a 2.7 percent decline from a year ago.

But the biggest surprise is the smaller inventory of homes on the market, a 14 percent drop from 2010. Some of this represents fewer foreclosures, which RealtyTrac reported this morning. It also could indicate the reluctance of longtime owners to sell at today's market price.

"Sellers may be choosing to rent rather than put their houses up for sale in the competitive market," Coppler said.

The lower inventory also has to do with a less mobile society, said veteran agent Lois Sury. "People aren't moving for jobs, and those who need to sell a home to buy another can't."

That may be one reason many of the home-mortgage applicants coming into Santa Fe banks are first-time buyers, said Pam Trujillo, a lender with Community Bank in Santa Fe. Though paperwork and underwriting are tougher than ever, new buyers can go forward with a clean offer that is not contingent on a home sale.

"A lot more local people are looking to buy," Trujillo said. "(For) those without a house to sell, there are less complications."

With regard to foreclosures, Santa Fe's lower numbers follow the rest of the U.S., which shows all foreclosure activities from default notices to auctions to bank sales are down from a year ago. The total foreclosure activity in Santa Fe at the end of March was the lowest since the first quarter of 2009 — and down 26 percent from December.

Highlights of the first quarter:

• There were 113 closed single-family home sales in the city, with a median price of $282,000 — a drop of 11.2 percent from a year ago.

• There were 96 closed sales in the unincorporated area, with a median price of $430,000 — an increase of 10.9 percent.

• There were 57 condo and townhouse sales in the quarter, with a median price of $255,000 — an 8.9 percent decline.

Contact Bruce Krasnow at 986-3034 or brucek@sfnewmexican.com.