Maybe, just maybe, the worst is over in some of the nation’s hardest-hit housing markets.

“It has been worse, that’s for sure,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist for Zillow, the real estate appraisal website that issued a housing report Tuesday. “The housing market has been worse. Nationally, I think that we’ve seen a pause in the increasing depreciation. I think that’s a good sign.”

Overall the value of U.S. homes fell by 12.1 percent, to $186,500, in the second quarter from a year earlier, the 10th consecutive quarterly decline, according to the Zillow report. But for the first time since 2007, the decline was smaller than in the previous quarter. In the first quarter, the decline was 12.4 percent.

“I think the noteworthy things here are, first of all, the year-to-year declines,” Humphries said. “This is the first quarter where they’re actually changing direction.”

The latest mortgage numbers show activity is far from robust, though applications for new purchases rose slightly. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s purchase index rose by 1.1 percent, the third gain in the last four weeks.

And there were signs of life in some of the markets that felt the housing crunch most.

In 39 markets—including Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Phoenix, all hard hit by the downturn—the number of homes sold was up versus a year ago, the report showed.

Some pricier sections of South Florida even showed increases in value, the South Florida Business Journal reports. Prices were up, quarter over quarter, in higher-priced Sunshine State areas such as Fisher Island, where the average home price is nearly $2 million (up 3.97 percent); Golden Beach, where the average home price is nearly $1.5 million (up 3.68 percent); and Manalapan, where the average home price is $2.5 million (up 14.43 percent).

In other news on the high end of the market nationally, luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers said it had its first annual increase in signed contracts in four years. The homebuilder said it had 3 percent more homebuyers in its third quarter than in the previous year. Compared to the second quarter, signed contracts were up 44 percent, though 9 percent of buyers later backed out. "Although some of our markets are still stuck in the mud, many are improving," Toll Brothers CEO Robert Toll said in a statement.

Another study, this one by American City Business Journals’ G. Scott Thomas, shows that even amidst the general gloom of the national housing market, some larger local markets have held their own. That study of the nation’s 100 largest metros showed the typical home in the Houston area is worth 3.8 percent more than a year ago. Prices are up 1.5 to 3.1 percent in Fort Worth, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin.

But overall, both the American City Business Journals and Zillow reports show, values are slipping throughout most of the country. American City’s study showed housing values have fallen in three-quarters of America’s metro areas.

Zillow studied 161 metropolitan areas, 142 of which showed declining values, while eight markets were flat and 11 showed gains.

Of 142 declining metropolitan areas in the Zillow report, 18 have posted at least three quarters of smaller year-to-year home-value declines, signaling that the market may be stabilizing in some of those hard-hit areas.

“Probably the brightest news is in some of the local markets that were hit early and hit hard,” Humphries said. “Those declines are getting less now.”

According to the Zillow report, nine of the markets with smaller value declines were in California, where foreclosures and declining values were most pronounced earlier in the downturn. Los Angeles, San Diego, Stockton, Oxnard, Santa Rosa-Petaluma, Modesto, Vallejo-Fairfield, Yuba City, and Napa have all seen three quarters in a row when year-over-year declines were smaller.

But balancing that encouraging bit of news are still plenty of negatives. Twenty-three percent of all homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth—a sign, Humphries said, that those homes could soon go into foreclosure. Foreclosure resales made up 22 percent of all home sales nationwide in June, and 29.2 percent of all homes sold in June were sold for less than the owners originally paid.

Those factors, Humphries said, are, “Why I’m hesitant in calling it a bottom.”