“I could believe it - I thought we were in a housing recession,’’ he said.
No anomaly, the Cavaliers’ experiences fit into a larger trend that has seen the real estate market in the area’s relatively affluent communities defy most national and even statewide trends.
In many local towns, home prices are stabilizing and even rising in the teeth of what is still a very tough market, real estate statistics show.
Acton, Dover, Concord, Lexington, Needham, Newton, Sherborn, Wayland, and Weston saw price increases last year, according to the Warren Group, a Boston-based real estate publisher and data company.
The increases in median single-family home prices range from just under 1.1 percent in Lexington, where the median was $701,000, to 13.6 percent in Dover, with a median of $940,000.
Condominium prices followed much the same pattern. While condo prices in Acton fell 11 percent, Concord, Lexington, and Newton, Sudbury, Wayland, and Wellesley saw increases ranging from Newton’s 0.1 percent to 23.2 percent in Lexington.
By contrast, the Massachusetts median single-family home price dropped 3 percent last year, to $286,000, according to the Warren Group. Single-family home sales were off 6 percent. Statewide, condo prices rose 2 percent to $270,000 last year.
Some upscale communities, such as Newton and Needham, are perennial favorites among home buyers, even during down times, and have seen little change from their peak prices during the housing bubble, brokers said.
“Those towns are the gold towns,’’ said Brigitte Senkler, a sales associate at Coldwell Banker in Concord. “They have a very stable economy, they have good schools, and they are great places to live.’’
And this year is expected to be more of the same, especially in towns at the top end of the price scale, industry analysts say.
“Towns like Lexington and Newton, those towns will always be desirable,’’ said Lesley Palmiter of William Raveis, who specializes in Natick and Wellesley, among other communities. “If they have suffered much of a depression in price valuation, it was momentary. Now it’s going back up,’’ she said.
