It might seem an easy choice.

Buy the well-maintained house with seven relatively small rooms, a one-car garage, a cramped yard, red cedar siding that looks pretty good after 50 years and nearly 1,600 square feet of living space. Or the buy the brand-new home with eight soaring, high-ceilinged rooms, a view of a golf course, a two-car garage, central air conditioning, closets the size of small rooms and 2,260 square feet of living space.

Of course, the prices vary. The first house — despite its smaller size and age — actually costs more than the second. It's on the market now for nearly $560,000. The second house, which includes a gleaming, modern kitchen, might seem like an incredible bargain at $525,000.

So what gives? The new house is part of the Strongwater Crossing development in Salem. The older one is on Hereford Road in the Clifton section of Marblehead.

"Location, location, location is still very significant," Century 21 manager Bob Meehan said.

Even in the midst of a historic collapse in prices, there is a vast difference in what your dollar will buy, taking you from big to bigger to biggest.

"You get a lot more for your money in Salem," Dan Fox of Coldwell Banker said.

As nervous agents look for signs that the housing market will recover, most see little change in the relative values of properties from town to town. Size and amenities, the kind seen at Strongwater Crossing, are often sacrificed for investment value, schools and other intangibles.

And that's notwithstanding what agent Annelie Sirois of Corbett Realty in Danvers has discovered. "The first question people ask me in this market: How big a steal can I get?"

It's the wrong attitude, she said. "Because it's not about stealing. It's about paying for a house what it's worth."

Four houses recently for sale in Salem, Beverly, Danvers and Peabody for $329,000 varied dramatically in building and lot size. In Danvers, the money didn't go far, fetching a one-story ranch on Bradley Road with six rooms, 11/2 baths and no garage. For the same price in Salem, a buyer can get an entire church on Canal Street with 3,775 square feet of living area, though it lacks a garage and bedrooms and has only a half-bathroom.

In between, a 1957 Peabody house on Kosciusko Street has six rooms, a garage and a bathroom, and a Beverly home, a 1700 Colonial on Hale Street, includes eight rooms.

Schools, taxes

Beyond house and lot size, the tax bill, traffic and quality of the schools drive the price.

In Salem, you can generally find a bigger house for the money.

In Peabody, you have the advantage of lower taxes.

Beverly is actually a secret bargain, said Byrce Suydam, who represents Re/Max in Marblehead. "It seems a better value overall."

High-end communities still cost more and, at least on the surface, offer less.

"Homes (in Marblehead) that would have sold in the mid- to high fours ($400,000), now they're selling in the low fours," Suydam said.

The median price for a home in Massachusetts at the end of 2007 was roughly $330,000.

"A year and a half ago, you couldn't get into Marblehead for that," Suydam says. Now you might just squeak by, landing "a two- to three-bedroom house in need of work."

People want to move to Marblehead, and the cachet that goes with the name and the seaside views are only part of the reasons.

"The town with the most respected school system will retain its value in a down market," Suydam said.

Joyce Flynn of Century 21 in Peabody said, "You don't get as much as you get if you stay in Peabody," putting the schools aside. Deciding on a more upscale location, a buyer might sacrifice a garage or an extra bathroom.

Prices are still lower in Salem and your money might fetch a bigger house, but the nature of the city means less land for the money than Peabody, she said. "Houses are built closer together in Salem."

Peabody has the advantage of proximity to major highways — but that's a double-edged sword that translates into a raging river of traffic just passing through.

Compared to Ipswich, Sirois said, Peabody will give you a bigger house with more land. For $330,000, you might get 1,000 square feet in Ipswich, she said, but 2,000 in Peabody. Nevertheless, a house is more than a home. It's an investment.

"(Peabody) would not appreciate in value as much," Sirois said. "In Ipswich, you would get more profit. It's the return of the money that people look at."

For her part, Sirois is hopeful that the market has finally bottomed out — not that she expects to see increases in the coming months. But the prices are finally more in line with the salaries of the average home buyer, she said. Even so, the future is hard to predict.

"It's a funny market," Sirois said.

"It's a crazy, crazy market," Flynn said.