Looking at the double-digit rise in home prices in the Boston area in recent years, buyers may be right to wonder if their money is being well invested. Is your home really worth what you've paid for it? And more to the point, when it is time for you to sell will you recoup what you've spent?

When housing prices are bid up purely under the expectation that they will continue to appreciate, that creates a price bubble. When prices fall precipitously and houses sell for below what an owner paid, that's a burst bubble. Any homeowner who's been caught in the descent knows the experience is most unpleasant.

Given our unsteady economy and the sharp decline in stock prices, you might wonder if the real estate market is sound. Are we in the middle of a bubble, and if so, when will it burst?In the Boston area, anxiety might be even greater. As recently as a decade ago, anyone living within commuting distance of Boston Common heard the very distinct "pop" of a housing bubble bursting.

Think back to the go-go years of the 1980s, when the high-tech economy was soaring and eager homeowners were snapping up high-priced homes. From 1980 to 1989, according to the Freddie Mac repeat sales index, housing prices in the Boston area nearly tripled.

But the boom was short lived; technology companies slashed jobs, the federal government slashed defense contracts, and home builders slashed construction jobs. From the peak in 1989 to the trough in 1992, home prices slid by 8 percent. Adjusting for general price inflation, home prices fell fully 25 percent in six years. Might that very same scenario repeat itself today? Are home prices headed for another nosedive?

Given today's rather different set of economic circumstances, I doubt it. Barring a far more significant economic downturn in our region than we have seen, home price appreciation is more likely to slow than turn negative.

Remarkable though it seems, this recent price run up has been far more contained than the last. In the 1980s, home prices grew by more than 20 percent in each of three consecutive years and by 27 percent in one year alone. In contrast, during the 1990s, in no year did home prices grow by more than 16 percent. Income growth, meanwhile, was stronger. During the 1980s, according to the US Census Bureau, median family income in Massachusetts grew by about 25 percent, but in the 1990s it grew by 39 percent.

The conditions that precipitated the tumble of house prices in the early 1990s, however, explain why the past boom-bust cycle is less likely to repeat itself. Back then, people thought the high-tech expansion was permanent and that prices would continue to go up. When that sector faltered, it intersected with a broader national recession. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment in the state rose from 2.6 percent in December 1987 to 9.8 percent in March 1991. Reeling, unemployed workers could not find work, and their savings were depleted.

Overbuilding in the mid-1980s also contributed to the bust. Building permits issued from 1984 through 1987 averaged about 35,000 per year in Massachusetts. According to a study by Boston Fed economist Lynn Browne, building in New England outpaced demand more than in any other region in the 1980s.In the end, what caused the 1980s bubble to form was a sense that home prices would continue to increase, and what caused it to burst was the strain that overbuilding and heavy job losses placed on housing markets. Unemployed workers put a glut of existing homes on the market but there were not enough employed workers to buy them.

Thankfully, this time around the region has been spared the crippling job losses and chronic overbuilding. The unemployment rate likely peaked at 6.1 percent in March of this year. Housing permits over the past several years have been running at about half the average number built annually from 1984 to 1987.

And unlike last time, people are buying homes more cautiously. In addition, they are buying for reasons that make good economic sense: Interest rates have been coming down, and their incomes have been going up. When prices began to fall in Massachusetts in the late 1980s, interest rates hovered around 10 percent. Now they stand under 6 percent - a 40-year low. Lower interest rates have helped reduce monthly mortgage payments in the face of higher home prices. Add the limited amount of home building in the state and the conditions remain favorable for sustainable home prices.

If, as most economists believe, we are moving into a more complete recovery rather than sliding back into a recession, home prices are more likely to slow than turn negative. Should interest rates rise sharply, home buyers can offset increases by shifting to adjustable lower-rate mortgages with shorter terms. Others who might consider moving may elect to stay put rather than buying with a higher-rate mortgage. This could slow sales but also limit the supply of homes for sale, thus helping support prices.

Spending more for housing relative to income to live in Massachusetts is nothing new. People are willing to devote larger shares of their income to live here because - in the language of economists - they feel doing so "maximizes their utility."

Could home prices fall here again? Of course, but it will take a more severe local recession or greater overbuilding than we have seen so far to force them down.