Yes, we are the old home capital of the country.

That's the the verdict from Trulia, which just released a national survey looking at American homes through the decades.

The Boston area comes out on tops, with a quarter to a third of all homes built before 1940.

There are a lot of high-fives being exchanged right now about rising home prices, at least among real estate brokers and market observers.

Greater Boston home prices were up 5.2 percent in February compared to the same month a year ago, according to the latest Case-Shiller report, the gold standard of real estate market tracking.

The Warren Group and the Massachusetts Association of Realtors both reported even higher price increases for March.

Yet scratch a little, and the housing recovery appears less solid than it looks on the surface.

Builders took it on the chin during the recession, with many going out of business or simply struggling to hang onto permits and undeveloped lots.

Now suddenly home builders are back, with a backlog of buyers.

And that's doubly true here in Greater Boston, which is in the midst of a years-long drought in single-family construction.

If you want something new now, you are more likely than not to have to commit to a set of drawings long before it is built. There are few, if any, newly-built, empty homes to look at.

For buyers, that means having "imagination and patience," writes Jed Kolko, Trulia's chief economist.

Get ready to drive as well. You are likely to have to drive go 128 and beyond to get what you are looking for, unless you have a million dollars to blow on a teardown/McMansion in Lexington or Needham.

How far? Well how about Rowley, tucked way up in the northeast corner of the state in Essex County.

Never a profile in courage, Congress is at it again, wringing its hands over whether to ax or just simply pare back the deduction for home mortgage interest.

Still, let's have some sympathy here for our hard-working federal representatives.

After all, with so many deep-pocketed real estate industry groups lobbying against any change, there's a lot of potential campaign cash at stake!

Check out Lexington - the median price doubled in March, soaring past the $1.2 million mark!

That's compared to $610,000 median sale price for homes in the historic western suburb back in March 2012, according to The Warren Group, the Boston-based real estate data firm and publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

It also makes Lexington, at least temporarily, the most expensive town in Massachusetts to buy a house in, beating out perennial price king Weston by more than a hundred grand.

OK, homes across Lexington have hardly doubled in value.

But higher priced homes certainly appear to be making up a larger proportion of the market this spring.

Overall, the number of sales in Lexington shrank this spring, dropping more than a quarter to 46.

Yet before we chalk Lexington up as a bizarre aberration, the same pattern can be found in a number of other high-end suburbs and resort towns across the state, a review of Warren Group real estate records shows.

OK, it may be a bit of stretch to say condos are selling like hotcakes.

But condos are getting snapped up much faster this spring compared to last year.

How much faster? Well more than 20 percent faster here in Massachusetts compared to a year ago.

And guess what? Condos are also selling a whole heck of a lot faster than single-family homes.

OK, I guess the rich towns just keep getting richer.

Home values in Cambridge, Arlington and Brookline have all shot past their peaks reached during the bubble years, Zillow finds in its latest quarterly report.

The median home value in Cambridge (yes trolls, I know, it's a city, was using "town" loosely) is now $463,000, a level last seen back in 2005, one of the bubbliest years on record. That's compared to $453,000 in April, 2005.

Brookline last fall blew past its 2005 price peak of $502,000, with the median home value having skyrocketed over the past five months to just under $530,000, according to Zillow, whose home value index blends both prices of homes sold with assessed values of homes that are not on the market. (Basically, it's a measurement of the value of all homes in the market, not just a compendium of sale prices.)

Homes with towns with the top school scores often fetch the highest dollars.

Real estate agents play a key role here, using scores as part of their pitch and on their websites as well.

But are buyers getting "duped" here, in some cases overpaying by hundreds of thousands based on poorly understood stats, with little understanding of the broader measures of what makes for a solid school system?

The latest home sales numbers are out. And for buyers across Greater Boston and the state, it's an increasingly ugly picture.

Basically, buyers are facing the worst possible combo, dwindling choices and rising prices.

Sales of single-family homes across Massachusetts dropped 3.6 percent in March compared to the same time last year, The Warren Group reports.

However, it's not a lack of interest that is driving down sales, but rather the dwindling number of choices.

The number of single-family homes for sale across the state plunged by nearly 30 percent in March compared to this time last spring, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.

Yet even as the number of listings and sales falls, home prices are gaining momentum.

The Marathon bombings traumatized Greater Boston and arguably the country as well.

Like many others, I have found myself heartbroken for the families of the victims and reminded of the precariousness of life and, in the end, what truly matters.

I freaked out and pulled my daughter out of daycare Friday morning. Overreacting, I guess, but that's part of being a parent at times. And I made doubly sure to make it to church on Sunday, even though I'd rather have gone hiking with the kids on a beautiful spring day. Showing up, supporting my faith community, however modestly, seemed overpoweringly like the right thing to do.

Of course, for those caught up in the spring real estate market, this is a strange time indeed.

Sellers increasingly have the upper hand in this inventory starved market.

Greater Boston saw an incredible 50 percent drop in the number of homes for sale this March compared to this time last year, according to Redfin.

Unfortunately, that has made some sellers particularly insufferable, as one regular on this blog, DrDoofenschmirtz, noted in a comment on an earlier post of mine.

Buyers are being told to ante up 20 percent to ensure the appraisal and mortgage will go through and to drop the inspection, a key protection that no one should ever waive.

And oh, by the way, we need a week to sort through all our offers!

Here's the good doctor, in his own words:

I am afraid that this is not a testament to intelligence of MA buyers, but testament to intelligence of sellers (and well oiled RE machine). Nothing better than little scarcity to make those crazy reptilian juices going nuts, in otherwise educated public.

The spring market has seen a big drop in home listings across Greater Boston.

That, in turn, has sparked intense competition among buyers and helped fuel multiple bid situations.

But surprisingly, even with Boston-area listings down by a whopping 50 percent this spring compared to last year, bidding wars have yet to completely dominate the market.

Actually, far from it, a new survey by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors finds.

I think so, but I'm biased. After all, this blog is devoted to the concerns and interests of Boston area buyers and sellers.

Still, there's an intriguing little stat that's worth looking at.

There is a shortage of homes for sale nationally right now, and that's driving all sorts of extreme market behavior, including the growing tendency to buy first and ask questions later.

It's no mystery why this is happening. The number homes for sale is down by nearly a third across the country, with nearly 35 percent of all homes selling within the first two weeks, Refin says

But not here in Greater Boston, where buyers still appear to be inclined to do a fair amount of tire kicking before they sign on the dotted line.

Only 3.3 percent of all Boston area homes are selling in the first two weeks. That makes us the "slowest selling market" in the country, according to Refin.

Not much in the mood today for the latest real estate goings on.

Probably be back tomorrow, but taking a break today.

Runners competing in today's Boston Marathon will dash past some of the priciest real estate on the planet.

The 26.2-mile race kicks off in middle class territory - Hopkinton, Ashland, Framingham and Natick. But as the runners cross the Natick line into Wellesley, the median home doubles. And as they hit their stride, the Marathon runners will find themselves gliding past some of the most expensive suburban and urban enclaves on earth before collapsing across the finish line at Copley Square, in the heart of downtown Boston's luxury home and condo market.

I wrote those lines on Marathon Day two years ago - I guess some things really never change.

Still, there have been significant shifts in prices over the past two years, with Hopkinton, Wellesley and Newton the big winners in terms home price appreciation. Natick and Framingham are seeing brisk sales activity, but dropping prices.

Ponder this: For the $935,000 it now takes to buy the median priced home in Wellesley, you can buy nearly three homes in neighboring Natick. Back during the rough times of 2011, you could only buy two Natick homes for the price of a single Wellesley residence.

For now at least, the richest towns just keep getting richer.

Greater Boston is the seventh "frothiest" real estate market in the country, a new report out this morning finds.

The gap between Boston area prices, now on the rise again, and median incomes, which have been static, is six percent higher now than it was back in 2000, according to Redfin.

Meanwhile, nearly three quarters of all homes sold in the Boston area in March had more than one offer, according to Redfin, citing deals it has been involved in, while 11 percent were flips, having changed hands in prior 18 months.

Buyer beware. As listings continue to dwindle, more than a few retreads from last spring are back on the market.

"Frank" is a long-time contributor to the comments section of this blog. He just landed a house after years of fruitless bargain hunting in which he saw more than his share of overpriced "dogs."

He finally found his dream home, but he had to pay up to get it.

Anyway, to Frank's surprise, one of the homes he tried unsuccessfully to bargain down is back on the market at $440,000, the same price it was listed at when he took a run at it last fall. (Frank, for what it's worth, tried to get the owners to accept something short of $400,000. No dice.)

While it was in a top town on the North Shore in a decent location, the 1950s cape was in pretty suspect condition, he recalls.

However, instead of fixing it up, the owners, who bought for just over $250,000 back in the 1990s, have decided to take another chance and hope the market bails them out.

Here's a big warning sign of trouble ahead in the housing market, courtesy of Zillow.

The average Boston area buyer is now spending 4.5 times his or her annual salary to snag a home. Basically, that's equivalent to a buyer making $100,000 anteing up $450,000 for a house, according to a new report out by Zillow this morning. (Can't find the direct link - here's Bloomberg's take on it.)

That's compared the ratio of 3.5 times income that was prevalent back in the 1990s in the pre-bubble years - basically the same buyer springing for a $350,000 house.

While price increases are starting to kick into high gear, with a 10 percent jump in Greater Boston in February, as anyone knows who has looked at their pay stub recently, incomes aren't going up and if anything, have fallen since the Great Recession as inflation slowly erodes buying power.

So what's enabling Boston area buyers to stretch so they can spend the equivalent of 4.5 times their annual pay on a house?

Will dwindling listings derail the real estate recovery?

At least for now, the answer is no.

The number of pending sales across the state jumped 4.6 percent in March compared to the same time last year, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reports.

In fact, the 4,308 homes put under agreement was the best showing since March 2005, at the height of the real estate bubble, when buyers laid claim to 4,404 homes.

That's just a percentage or two difference.

Pending condo sales also took a big jump in March, surging 9.4 percent to 1,888.

Given the number of homes and condos for sale is down roughly a quarter from this time in 2012, buyers are clearly biting the bullet and taking the plunge anyway.

If you are just getting back into the market after sitting out the downturn, well aren't you in for quite a surprise!

Your paycheck may not be much bigger than it was back in 2008, and, adjusted for inflation, has probably gone down.

But at least when it comes to buying a home, Ben Bernanke's Fed has given you the biggest raise you'll ever get in your life.

Forget a nice 5 percent of 10 percent - actually even 20 percent is too low.

Try a good third - or more than 33 percent. That's right. If $300,000 was your limit back in the good old days before the 2008 crash, you can boost that now to more than $400,000.