Declining home prices continue to help residential sales in New Hampshire. Prices are down about 11 percent and sales for the year are a hair above what they were in 2008.

Real estate agents are pleased with the October numbers. After a grim period stretching from last fall to early spring, there’s been a consistent if modest upward trend. The number of homes sold last month rose compared to this September and compared to October a year ago. The data come from the New Hampshire Association of Realtors.

The state unemployment rate fell 4-tenths of a percent in October.

Unemployment dropped to 6.8 percent. The decline caught most analysts by surprise. Usually, when the national rate rises, as it did, so does the state’s.

Economist Annette Nielsen with the labor market information bureau says the job growth is real. The rate is not due to lots of people dropping out of the labor force. But Nielsen takes a cautious view.

Nielsen: "I would like to see a couple of months before I would definitely say this is what’s going on."