Silicon Valley has had it's ups and downs, along with the rest of the nation, that's for sure.

In fact, you could say Silicon Valley IS a housing market of ups and downs -- ups and downs at the same time. Some regions of the 15-city county are up, others are down in terms of home sales, home prices or both.

But the more telling characteristic from technology's ground zero is that the region has shaped up as California's strongest housing market.

That could mean it'll be the first in the Golden State to see better days.

The median price of single-family homes in closed sales was $815,000 in March, in Silicon Valley, according to Richard Calhoun.

Calhoun, owner of Creekside Realty in San Jose, publishes the statistical Bay Area Real Estate Newsletter.

He says Silicon Valley's March price is just 6 percent off the region's peak record price of about $870,000 set nearly a year ago in April 2007.

In contrast, the latest figures from the California Association of Realtors reveals that over the past year, home prices fell 20 percent or more in 8 out of the 20 regions the association tracks throughout the state.

Among all the regions, Silicon Valley had the smallest decline in home prices statewide over the past year.

The paltry number of single-family home sales in Silicon Valley, 583 in March, was the lowest number of completed transactions for any March since 1998. Another indicator the market is at or near the bottom.

Good schools, job centers and related technology incomes clustered in the region's northwest quadrant continued to cause a market split.

The northwest continues to see home prices at or near record highs.

On the other hand, Calhoun said the eastern, central and south Silicon Valley regions have suffered home value declines as much as 20 percent in the past year.