Median single-family home prices on Oahu ended 2010 on an up note, rising 5.8 percent to $587,000 for homes sold in December.

The gain helped produce the first annual price increase since 2007, according to statistics released today by the Honolulu Board of Realtors.

For all of 2010, the median price for previously owned single-family homes was $592,750, up 3.1 percent from $575,000 the year before.

The annual median price peaked in 2007 at $643,500, and slipped 3 percent in 2008 followed by a 7.9 percent drop in 2009.

In Oahu’s condominium market, the median price in December inched up 0.2 percent to $303,000 from $302,500 in the same month a year earlier.  For the full year, the median condo sale price was unchanged at $305,000, which represented an improvement considering that the median price fell 6.2 percent in 2009 from a peak of $325,000 set in 2007 and repeated in 2008.

Sales volume in December was mixed for single-family homes and condos. The number of single-family home sales was up 12.5 percent to 306 in December from 272 a year earlier. The number of condo sales was down 2.6 percent to 341 from 350 in the same period.

For the full year, sales of single-family homes rose 13.4 percent to 3,051 last year compared with 2,690 the year before. The gain broke a five-year string of declines. Condo sales for all of 2010 rose 10.3 percent to 3,934 compared with 3,566 the year before. This gain reversed four consecutive years of declines.

Joyce Nakamura, newly elected president of the Realtor association, said the market this year faces some challenges with interest rates moving higher, the absence of federal tax credits and the possibility of Congress eliminating the mortgage interest tax deduction. But Nakamura, an agent with Properties Unlimited, still expects the market this year will build off last year’s gain.