There was a slight improvement in the dismal housing market but it’s still too early to tell if the market has hit bottom, says a New York Times story that looks at recent market reports. And the bottom must be hit before things can get better. What’s your take? Are we getting near the bottom or have we reached the bottom?

Home sales have begun to stabilize as sharply reduced prices lured buyers back into the market in July, according to a pair of reports issued this week. And prices, once plummeting at a breakneck pace, fell in June at a more moderate clip.

But prices will have to keep falling, economists said on Tuesday, before the housing market can make a full recovery. Much of the buying last month stemmed from fire sales of foreclosed homes. And prices are expected to keep sagging under the weight of an enormous backlog of unsold homes.

For now, “it’s still a buyer’s market, and likely to be so for a while,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist of PNC Bank. “Home buyers are holding all the aces.”

A report on Tuesday showed that in the 12 months through June, American home values dropped 15.9 percent, the biggest annual decline on record.