Remember the dreaded double dip in home prices? Well, it’s fast turning into a meaningless double blip in Greater Boston.

Home sales fell off a cliff across the country and across the Bay State last year with the end of the homebuyer tax credits. Nationally, prices also tanked, adding to the already steep declines racked up over the past few years.

But towns and neighborhoods inside the Interstate 495 belt have actually seen a slight increase in prices over the past year, according to numbers from both The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman, and the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.

Yes, these may be desperate times, but they are clearly a lot less desperate in the Boston area compared to many other parts of the country and commonwealth.

“Boston and cities like New York, Washington, and San Francisco/Silicon Valley are really more driven by the broader global economy than most other U.S. markets,” noted David Crowley, a veteran real estate agent in Boston’s South End real estate agent, in an email. “Most local buyers and sellers just don’t understand that.”

Then & Now

It’s hardly scientific, but I took a look at The Warren Group’s median home prices for 71 cities and towns in Greater Boston. Basically, it’s everything from Boston, Cambridge and Brookline out to Maynard, Millis and Mansfield.

The median year-to-date sale price has actually risen – albeit by a staggering $283 – to $482,387.

Second quarter numbers put out by Massachusetts Association of Realtors show a similar trend – Greater Boston home prices were up a fraction of a percent in the second quarter over Q2 2010.

In fact, some upscale and even some not so upscale suburbs actually gained ground over the past year.

Wrentham, a nice but far from tony town, saw its median price jump $90,000, while Ashland posted a more than $55,000 increase, to $393,000.

The usual suspects also fared well – in some cases prices are comparable or even higher today than they were at the peak of the real estate bubble.

The median price in Cambridge fell a percentage point or two over the past year to $775,000, but that represents a whopping $120,000-plus increase over 2005. And at $789,000, the median price in Winchester is a good $55,000 over 2005. Wellesley, at $925,000, is a paltry $25,000 off its bubble-years peak.

Now let’s not get too Pollyannaish here – after all, while prices have held, sales are hovering far from their pre-recession peaks.

Still, Greater Boston’s remarkably stubborn home prices are more than just a statistical fluke.

There’s a reason why home prices continue to crater in hard-hit markets like Las Vegas, even after falling 30 to 40 percent, yet bend but refuse to break here.

Heck, the Boston area is even bucking the statewide trends – the median price has fallen to $296,000, a drop of $4,000 from this time last year.

Picky, Picky

The answer is not that bad times have skipped over Eastern Massachusetts, for they certainly have not. But the desperation index is simply lower here. While the state jobless rate of 7.4 percent would surely stink in any ordinary time, it sure beats the national rate of 9.1 percent.

And some sectors, like high-tech and biotech, are hiring briskly.

More importantly for the real estate market, foreclosures, which make up as much as 30 percent or more of the sales in some markets, are a factor here but far from a dominant one.

All this means there are simply fewer homeowners in suburban Boston than in Phoenix or Miami ready to sell at any price with the bank breathing down their necks.

Boston-area homeowners have established a reputation as tough bargainers, unwilling to settle in price, to the frustration of many buyers hoping to finally crack one of the country’s most expensive housing markets.

A recent Trulia survey hit the nail on the head when it found that Greater Boston homeowners were the stingiest in the country when it comes to price reductions. The average price drop here is just 5 percent, compared to 9 percent in Atlanta and 11 percent in Miami.

Maybe we are just seeing old fashioned Yankee frugality and hard bargaining at play here. But more likely it is a reflection of a local economy that is doing relatively better than many other parts of the country.

We can afford to be picky here – and hang onto our inflated home prices even as they erode away everywhere else.