The Great Recession may be over, but try telling that to all the millionaires and billionaires out there trying to unload everything from oversized McMansions to sprawling estates.

Sales of $1 million-plus homes across the Bay State took a big hit during the recession.

And, despite a mini-rally last spring, sales at the very top of the market have yet to fully recover, according to data obtained from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

OK, we’ve hit bottom, I grant you that. But climbing out could take a while as the super rich move cautiously back into a still turbulent real estate market.

While sale of homes in the $1 million range in Newton are still plugging along, once you get to $2 million and up, the activity drops off, said Ned Mahoney, a sales associate at RE/MAX Leading Edge.

Super high-end buyers are "more risk adverse – they don’t want to lose money," Mahoney said. "You have to offer an exceptional value to attract a $2 million to $3 million buyer today."

Of course, this is not the way it was supposed to be. The stock market has rebounded from its Great Depression-like 2008 swoon, and the rich and even just the merely wealthy were supposed to be splurging again.

And they very well may be when it comes to fancy cars, artwork and jewelry – but when it comes to real estate, they are taking a go-slow approach right now.

The decline in very high-end home sales was gradual at first, with the number of $1 million-plus sales in Massachusetts barely budging from the 2,300-to-2,400-per-year mark in 2006 and 2007, even as the rest of the real estate market began to tank, according to The Warren Group numbers.

Then came the near collapse of the global financial system in September 2008, and suddenly, the once-rosy mansion market went into a tailspin.

High-end sales dropped 25 percent statewide, down to 1,800 for all of 2008. As the worst recession in generations kicked in, sales of homes worth $1 million and more took another dive in 2009, to 1,400.

Then the homebuyer tax credits kicked in, showering qualified buyers with up to $8,000 in checks from Uncle Sam.

The tax credit artificially pumped up sales and prices across the Bay State, and appears to have had a trickle up effect.

By the end of 2010, sales of homes $1 million and up in Massachusetts had partially bounced back from the recession lows of 2008 and 2009, hitting 1,760, a shade below 2008’s total of 1,800. That’s good, but it’s still more than 25 percent below the peak.

So far this year, sales appear to have bottomed out at the somewhat higher 2010 numbers – somewhat of an accomplishment given that home sales across the rest of the real estate market are swooning right now.

There were 260 sales of homes above $1 million across Massachusetts in the first quarter – exactly the same as first quarter 2010.

That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a fair amount of fluctuation in sales and prices, especially in the hip and upscale zip codes that tend to attract the folks with the most money.

In fact, a recent report by RE/MAX of New England on the $1 million-plus home sales market, both in Massachusetts and across the region, offers some additional numbers to munch on.

Weston mega-property sales were off 7 percent, Newton by 3 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to 2010.

In a sign of a times, one Weston home owner has turned to "accelerated marketing" to unload his $4.5 million manse, with bids due last week.

But if things are perfect for our Bay State mansion owners, they are positively terrible for their deep-pocketed cousins in Connecticut and Rhode Island, according to RE/MAX.

Looking beyond our little world here inside Interstate-495, Greenwich, Conn. – home to the largest collection of hedge fund tycoons in the world – saw $1 million-plus sales drop 77 percent in the first quarter.

Other wealthy Connecticut towns have also taken it on the chin. Darien saw prices of elite homes fall 28 percent to $1.7 million, while sales cratered 36 percent. Mansion prices in Westport weren’t far behind, dropping 16 percent to $2 million, whiles sales dropped nearly 30 percent.

"The luxury market in New England’s 15 most desirable towns has experienced more difficulty in the last quarter than the overall housing market," the RE/MAX report notes.

But we’ll save the worst for last here.

In Middleton, R.I., troubled actor Nicolas Cage unloaded his 24,664-square-foot manor for a pathetic $6.2 million. That’s down from the $15.7 million Cage shelled out in 2007, when the mansion market was riding high.

Don’t worry. You’ll someday be reading again breathless stories about bidding wars for outlandishly priced estates, and probably sooner here in Massachusetts than in many other states.

But from the looks of it, maybe not this year.