Sales of existing homes in America fell more than forecast last month, a sign that residential real estate remains mired in its worst recession in 16 years.

Purchases declined 3.8% to an annual rate of 5.75 million, the slowest pace since November 2002, from a revised 5.98 million in May, the National Association of Realtors said yesterday in Washington.

At the same time, the supply of homes for sale dropped for the first time this year and the median price rose for the first time in 11 months.

The housing slump, which slowed economic growth in the first quarter to the lowest level since 2002, is the biggest risk to the six-year economic expansion, according to Federal Reserve policy makers.

“There’s no evidence we’ve hit bottom yet,” a senior economist at UBS Securities LLC in Stamford, Conn., who correctly forecast the drop in sales, James O’Sullivan, said. While “the inventory numbers are encouraging,” he added, “I wouldn’t celebrate yet.”

Resales were projected to fall 2.1% to a 5.86 million annual rate from a previously reported 5.99 million in May, according to the median estimate of 73 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.

Sales last month were down 11.4% from a year earlier.

The backlog of homes for sale fell 4.2%. At the current sales pace, that represented 8.8 months’ worth, matching the prior month as the highest since 1992.

The median price rose 0.3% last month from a year ago to $230,100, the first increase from year-earlier levels in 11 months, the Realtors group said.

The market “is bumping along the bottom,” the chief economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, N.C., John Silvia, said.

Treasury notes were little changed as concerns about credit-market risk held yields near the lowest in almost eight weeks. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note was 4.90%.

A survey of regional economies from the Federal Reserve found that residential construction and real-estate activity continued to decline in most districts during June and early July. The report, known as the Beige Book, also showed the economy is expanding, with job creation and “ongoing cost pressures.”

Tuesday, Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest American mortgage lender, cut its profit forecast as a growing number of homeowners fell behind on home-equity loan payments.

The chief executive officer, Angelo Mozilo, told investors on a conference call that he expects “difficult housing and mortgage market conditions to persist” through the end of the year.