Even the typical summer sales spike wasn’t enough to wrench Los Angeles County’s housing market in July out of the grip of the struggling economy.

Home sales rose since June but were still off 7.4 percent to 4,164 units compared with a year earlier, according to figures provided by Home Data of Hicksville, N.Y.

After holding steady at $340,000 in April, May and June, the median price of a home rose $5,000 – but that was still off by 1.4 percent from a year earlier.

“I think we are looking at a market that is continuing to sort of be buffeted by the ebb and flow of all the things that are happening in the economy, where there’s a great deal of uncertainty,” said Robert Kleinhenz, deputy chief economist at the California Association of Realtors.

Condo sales struggled as well, with the average price plummeting nearly 10 percent since last year to $275,000 and sales falling 3.1 percent to 1,583 units.

However, wealthier neighborhoods, largely on the Westside, continued to perform better than the market as a whole, a trend that began several months ago.

In the 15 ZIP codes with median prices topping $1 million, there was a 5.9 percent growth in sales to 215 homes compared with a year earlier. Likewise, the average of those median prices rose nearly 20 percent to nearly $1.5 million. Santa Monica posted the highest median at $2.64 million.

“There’s a lack of supply, and some demand now, and that’s throughout the prime Westside markets,” said Michael Libow, a broker at the Beverly Hills office of Coldwell Banker.

Still, for the market as a whole, there was pessimism. In fact, the Realtors association expects to adjust its sales forecast downward by 4 percent for the remainder of the year. Now, about 291,000 homes are expected to change hands statewide.

“Sales haven’t perked up the way we thought they would,” Kleinhenz said. “We are … looking at lower sales than we had anticipated.”