The Bay State’s old mill cities and factory towns have long been a bastion of relatively affordable homes and apartments in one of the most expensive states in the country to live in.

But that may be changing as the soaring prices that have hit so many towns, suburbs and upscale city neighborhoods across the state filter down to their poorer urban cousins.

After years of taking a beating, home prices are up, and up big time, in places like Lowell and Lawrence, Brockton and New Bedford, not to mention Springfield and Worcester, according to data from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

While good news for battered city finances, the upsurge in prices is a mixed bag at best for working and even some middle-class buyers, especially first-timers, who have been priced out of the ‘burbs and are looking for a place under $150,000 to call home.

Leading the pack is Lowell, where the median price now tops $210,000 after a 19 percent spike during the first six months of the year.

“Depending on your income, for people making $40,000 to $50,000, you start getting north of $200,000, you start getting priced out,” said Tom Callahan, executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance.

Bust Then Boom

The numbers are absolutely remarkable, especially given how far prices fell in many of the state’s poorer urban neighborhoods and cities in the wake of the real estate crash and Great Recession.

While the wealthier parts of Boston and the sprawling suburbs of Eastern Massachusetts saw a significant, but not overly dramatic decline in prices, the state’s smaller industrial cities had more in common with ravaged Sunbelt markets like Vegas and Phoenix than Newton or Beacon Hill.

In more than a few of the state’s hardest hit ZIP codes, the median price fell below even $100,000.

Athol, a struggling factory town on Route 2, had a median price of just $83,500 last year, with Springfield just a notch higher, at $90,000.

No more. Athol has seen its median price soar by 23 percent during the first six months of the year, to $104,500, while Springfield has surged back to $124,000.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, with Brockton up 25 percent to $175,000, Worcester up nearly 11 percent $177,500 and Lawrence up 14 percent. And let’s not forget Holyoke, up 23 percent to $167,835 and New Bedford, up 22 percent to $165,000.

Certainly the dramatic decline in foreclosures across the state has been a factor in the price recovery we are seeing in many of the Bay State’s smaller cities.

Petitions by banks and other lenders to foreclose on homes in Massachusetts fell nearly 70 percent in the first six months of the year, to just under 3,000 filings, The Warren Group reports.

Urban neighborhoods across Massachusetts were hit early and hard by the foreclosure crisis, with mounting foreclosures as early as 2004 and 2005 as a result of a wave of nutty, subprime lending.

It’s The Inventory, Stupid

But an even bigger factor right now is the shortage of homes for sale.

Just as we are seeing in the suburbs and in the wealthy downtown Boston neighborhoods, there are simply lots of buyers chasing too few homes.

A sure sign of a lack of inventory can be seen in the home sales numbers for our state’s smaller cities, which are universally either down or at best neutral compared to 2012.

That’s not due to a lack of buyer interest, but rather a shortage of homes to look at, notes MAHA’s Callahan.

Home buyer classes at the Dorchester nonprofit began filling up in early 2012 and are now jam packed. So are the classes offered by a fellow nonprofit housing group in the Merrimack Valley, home to Lowell and Lawrence, he noted.

Signs that rock bottom interest rates may be rising again have also spurred home buyers to hit the market and buy now, Callahan notes.

The rise in prices underscores the need for the development of affordable, subsidized units, not just in the suburbs, but in the state’s cities as well, Callahan said.

When it comes to runaway prices here in the Bay State, it looks like there are no longer any safe havens. 

Scott Van Voorhis can be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.