The median home price in Greater Boston at the end of June, when the second quarter wrapped up, was $478,000. That's down just $14,000 from the second quarter of 2005, when the median sale price stood at $492,000.

And it gets even more interesting when you compare today's prices with 2004.

In fact, Greater Boston home prices have actually risen by $3,000 since Q2 2004, when the median sale price was $475,000, according to MAR.
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All this is not to say the Boston area has totally escaped the wrath of one of the deepest real estate downturns in the modern era - far from it.

While prices have stayed consistently high, the number of homes sold is off dramatically and shows no signs of getting back to peak levels in the near future.

And of course, the results are also skewed by the fact the Boston area includes some of the wealthiest zip codes in the country, let alone the state, including Weston, Wellesley, Brookline, Newton, Lincoln and Concord.

And yes, despite this collective price buoyancy, there are more than a few towns in the Boston area that has seen both prices and sales fall markedly over the past few years.

Now I heard the grumbling already- here's another Realtor plot to convince us all to run out and buy a house.

Rather, I wondered what the quarterly numbers looked like and put in a request for them to the MAR spokesman. Most the numbers have been sitting, gathering dust, on the organization's website.

I will take another look at Greater Boston prices in the coming days, next time using Warren Group numbers, though I suspect, having followed them for years, they are pretty similar.,

It would also be worth looking more closely at Case-Shiller numbers - they screen out new homes and focus solely on resales.

But it does raise the question of whether home prices are destined to remain perpetually inflated here in Greater Boston.