The $930 million sale of the Hancock is the most dramatic signal yet that tower prices, after a sharp but short downturn, are on the rise again.

And while it may be something short of miraculous, the renewed appetite among investors for elite skyscrapers in Boston and across the country offers hope – and some hard lessons – for the beleaguered home sales market.

Uncle Sam decided early on the residential real estate market was too big to fail, doling out hundreds of billions in hopes of restoring home values and getting falling sales back on track.

By contrast, tower owners and their frazzled lenders were left to fend for themselves, with dramatically different results.

Tower prices in downtown Boston appear to be slowly but surely returning to pre-financial crisis levels after a brutal but brief collapse in 2009.

"I think we are back to something that seems a bit more normal," said Mary Sullivan Kelly, director research at Boston-based Colliers Meredith & Grew, of tower sales. Of the best towers in prime locations and with solid leases, there is "more demand right now than there is supply."

Meanwhile, home values and sales, despite years of constant government tinkering and subsidies, are slowly sinking ever lower.

The lesson: Government bailouts, at least if not handled correctly, can do more harm than good.

Market-Dictated

Tower prices and sales shattered records in 2006 and 2007, arguably mirroring the bubble in home prices that had peaked a couple years before.

The near meltdown of the global financial system in the fall of 2008 changed that overnight.

The market went into a deep freeze in 2009, with few office building or tower sales of any size.

But after hitting rock bottom, sales and prices of office towers have begun to rebound, in Boston and across the country.

Boston Properties’ twin deals for the Hancock for Waltham’s Bay Colony office complex have already ensured that 2010 will be a significant improvement over last year.

Total sales volume, while still far below the records set in 2007, is likely to wind up closer to – if not beating – the $1.4 billion in commercial properties and towers sold in 2008. That’s compared to the mere $847 million in transactions seen in 2009, Meredith & Grew’s Kelly reports.

In fact, if both the Hancock and Bay Colony sales close in the fourth quarter, total sales could approach $2 billion.

Moreover, Boston Properties and other investors have also been busy shelling out big sums for office towers in other cities, including New York and Seattle.

Simply put, office tower values were allowed to fall and fall hard, clearing the way for a rebound as values have risen to find their natural, market-dictated level.

While there was talk of a government bailout, Congress lost its stomach for massive industry rescue packages before it could get to the commercial real estate market.

But while tower prices are on the mend, home values appear lost in a wilderness created by bad government policy.

Ineffective Bumbling

At first, the federal government’s decision to help fuel home prices by doling out billions in tax credits appeared to go swimmingly.

Sales, and then prices, of homes rose steadily into 2010 from their 2009 depths as buyers rushed to cash in their credits, sometimes even overpaying in their eagerness to get their government handout.

But instead of kick-starting the market, the tax credit simply stole from future demand. When the tax credit ended in April, sales plummeted – and are still hurtling downward as we speak.

But more than just the tax credit is to blame. The Obama administration and state governments from here to California have spent the last few years making half-hearted attempts to bail out homeowners facing foreclosure.

The attempts in many cases have simply delayed the inevitable, leading to a massive pileup of bank-owned homes and condos.

So what has been the sum total of all this ineffective government tinkering and bumbling? Well, if you haven’t guessed it already: A protracted downturn in the residential market, in which prices fall but are kept from hitting bottom.

After all, home sales first began to slow in late 2005 in Greater Boston, and now, five years later, the downward spiral continues, with no end in sight.

Sure, home values are down maybe 15 percent to 20 percent from their peak in the Boston area, but given the loony levels they hit back during the bubble years, that’s far from enough to bring out the buyers.

So we are stuck with an endless standoff.

Sellers, more than a few of whom overpaid during the bubble years, are holding out for still inflated prices while buyers attempt to wait them out.

As the rebound in the office market has show once again: No pain, no gain.