All real estate markets are not created equal, especially here in the Bay State.

Wealth and power traditionally flow east on the Massachusetts Turnpike, not west. And with the real estate market finally moving into “recovery” mode, the same dynamic is once again at work.

Home prices along Interstate 495 and much of the rest of Massachusetts could be in for a prolonged slump, even as the real estate market surges again within the Route 128 beltway.

Home prices are either breaking new records or near record territory in many towns along 128, with an influx of high-paying biotech and tech jobs once again pushing up values.

But along 495 and across many parts of Central and Western Massachusetts, home prices collapsed in the recession and continue to decline even now. And the big drop in real estate prices has been accompanied by a big increase in vacant commercial space along the 495 beltway, with both trends feeding on and exacerbating the other.

Eventually, the lure of cheaper home prices and dirt-cheap office rents will end both skids out on 495. But unlike past cycles, the real estate market along 495 faces some new and serious headwinds.

Boom…

Ironically, at a time when you can work pretty much from anywhere on your laptop or even smart phone, cutting edge firms are shelling out ridiculous amounts of money to plant their flag in the right location.

If all this wasn’t enough, there’s the added challenge of high gas prices and changing societal attitudes.

First is the obvious – gas prices seem destined to remain at elevated levels that would have seemed shocking a decade ago. It’s expensive now to drive into Boston or Cambridge, especially from the towns along or beyond the 495 beltway.

Moreover, years of preaching about the evils to the eco system perpetrated by far-flung suburbs and their gas guzzling residents have taken the shine off the exurbs both here and across the country.

Certainly 128 has benefited from these changes, with a number of fast-growing life science, social networking and software firms taking up empty space along the highway, especially in the central Burlington to Dedham stretch.

And Cambridge is exerting an even more powerful gravitational pull – witness the recent decision by Biogen Idec to dump its brand new 128 headquarters in Weston and spend millions more in order to move into new digs in the biotech and life sciences hothouse of Kendall Square.

Unemployment is just under 5 percent for the Boston/Cambridge/128 area, compared to 6.3 percent statewide.

So what does this have to do with home prices?

Well, simply put, where there are high-paying jobs and a growing industry or two, rising real estate prices are typically not far behind.

Weston shattered records in April with a median single-family home price of $1.4 million, a notch above its last peak in 2005, according to data obtained from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman. Burlington is within $10,000 of its last record of $405,000, also set in 2005, while Lexington, Needham and Newton are all within 10 percent or less of their last price peaks set before the recession.

…And Bust

But less than 20 miles west, home prices along 495 are falling, not rising, while the amount of empty office space continues to pile up.

Office vacancy is well over 20 percent all along the 495 beltway, from Plainville on the Rhode Island border on up to Littleton. The western stretch of the corridor, centered on Marlborough, has taken a particularly tough beating, with empty space soaring past the 36 percent mark in the first quarter, according to Colliers International.

Again, there is a direct correlation between jobs and real estate values. Show me a struggling office market, and I will show you nearby towns with falling home prices.

Wrentham’s median single-family home price fell to $262,000 in April after hitting half a million in 2006. On the northern stretch of the 495 loop, Bolton saw a similarly steep decline, to just under $400,000 this April from $600,000 six years ago. Meanwhile, Milford and Franklin have deep holes to dig out of, with home prices down 30 percent and 24 percent respectively from their peaks, according to The Warren Group.

Of course, it can’t go on like this forever – it never does. All markets are cyclical, and the real estate market is no exception.

But this time the climb up promises to be much longer and more painful for 495 than in years past. And whether the corridor will ever get back to the glory days of the late 1990s, when it was a hotbed for new corporate campuses and fast growing suburbs, remains to be seen.

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