Metro Atlanta’s housing market got off to a good start this year, according to local experts and the National Association of Realtors.

According to data released Wednesday, the sale price of single-family existing homes rose nearly 2 percent in January 2011, compared with the same month a year before. Sales fell 6.3 percent over the same period, the data shows.

Nationally prices fell nearly 3 percent and sales were up 3.3 percent.

This marks the first time since August the metro area has seen an increase in year-over-year prices. It is also the first time in well over a year that metro Atlanta has beaten the national statistics and tracked ahead of the other major metro areas surveyed.

According to the realtors group, Atlanta was one of seven metro areas that experience a year-over-year price increase.

The NAR report comes one day after the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Index showed an 8 percent decline in December 2010 existing single-family home sale prices, compared with the same month in 2009.

The positive turn of events didn’t surprise Dac Carver, vice president and managing broker for Beacham & Co. Realtors.

“That’s what we’ve been seeing on the ground since December,” he said. “Even the price of foreclosed homes was up in December.”

Carver said the uptick in price can be attributed, in part, to the dwindling inventory in the metro area. Since the inventory peaked in 2007, the available supply has decreased by 40 percent, he said.

“I also think sellers are saying, ‘We’ve been beaten up enough,’ and they either don’t put it on the market or they stick to their price,” he said. “We’re starting to see the tide turn in favor of sellers, be they bank or traditional sales.”

Across the nation, all existing-home sales, including townhomes and condominiums, increased 2.7 percent in January, the first time in seven months that sales activity was higher than a year earlier, according to data released by the NAR.

“The uptrend in home sales is consistent with improvements in the economy and jobs, which are helping boost consumer confidence,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist.