A vacant colonial in Hopkinton’s Cranberry Cove neighborhood marks its third birthday this year, but, in many ways, still shows like a new home.

Construction on the property began in 2006, when CEO-style homes were in high demand, said Stephen Dirrane, a real estate agent with Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty. The 8,277-square-foot house includes a wine cellar, with space for a tasting room, a carriage house, six suite-style bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

The builder expected $3.5 million for the 13 Wescott Drive property, Dirrane said. When it was finished in 2008, however, it met a different economic picture.

“By the time it was completed, things were on the way down,” Dirrane said. “The bust was in full effect and, frankly, a lot of the high-tech places they were building for had folded.”

The current price, $2.5 million, is a bargain, Dirrane said. It is also the highest price for any single-family home currently listed in Hopkinton.

But while the recession dulled the taste for high-priced homes for a while, sales figures now seem to be pointing toward a chance for sellers to get the deluxe dwellings off their hands.

Homes exceeding the million-dollar mark accounted for about 1.4 percent of sales in the United States in February, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales of such homes are growing in most regions, except the West, compared with February 2010. Southern states saw the largest growth, according to the National Association of Realtors, with sales increasing by 15.4 percent.

Northeast sales grew by 6.3 percent over the previous year.

“We’ve had more interest in the house in the past week or two than we have had in a long time,” Dirrane said, noting that potential buyers have mostly been medical workers or local businessmen with families. “I think that’s a statement about the economy as well.”

Like many real estate companies, Gibson Sotheby’s is greeting the increased demand with a technology-based marketing thrust to attract people from around the world to MetroWest, CEO Larry Rideout said.

“When we list a property, it populates 40 significant websites,” he said. “Everything we’ve done is on an international basis.”

And although the real estate market seems stronger, some factors may still keep these upscale houses from selling.

Hallmark Sotheby’s International Realty agent Lynn Hargrave is listing the two most expensive houses in Hopedale – a 5,500-square-foot Queen Anne Victorian and a 14,000-square-foot former nursing home.

On top of their prices, $874,000 and $2.9 million respectively, is the cost of living in and heating a building that size.

The larger property, called Oakledge, would make a beautiful bed-and-breakfast, Hargrave said. Because it is in a residential district, however, a zoning change would be needed. Built in 1905, the 34 Adin St. house went through a renovation over the past five years to return to its original “turn-of-the-century grandeur,” Hargrave said.

The house has been for sale for about two years.

“It’s very, very difficult to interest people in these bigger homes,” Hargrave said.

When Alan Ryan moved to the Queen Anne Victorian 13 years ago, he converted the home’s heating system from oil to gas.

“We really did it because it was easier to do it that way for us instead of putting in a new oil tank,” Ryan said. “I’m so glad we did it now, with the price of oil. Gas has stayed more stable.”

The 85 Adin St. property was built in 1885 by William Lapworth, who holds patents on various kinds of elastic webbing. The 12-room home, called Urncrest, has a billiard room, music room, a modern kitchen, five bedrooms and four bathrooms.

Ryan said he’s going to miss the home’s “spacious rooms, high ceilings, beautiful hardwood floors.” But with his grown daughter living in Utah and a son in college, Ryan says the home is too big for him and his wife, who works in Providence.

They began showing the property in September and have yet to find the right buyer.

“We really hope that somebody buys this house that appreciates all the history that we tried to preserve,” Ryan said.

The owner of Natick’s most expensive single-family home took measures to cut heating costs, listing agent Selma Newburgh said, by using an outdoor wood-burning boiler to reduce dependency on its oil furnace. The $1.9 million house rests on a 2.93-acre peninsula on Fiske Pond and dates to the mid-1800s.

The property’s side yard is covered with chopped wood, which will eventually be used in the automatic outdoor boiler. That boiler, which can be switched off at will, heats the home’s interior boiler and prevents the oil furnace from turning on.

The 31 Point St. property also includes a barn, modern apartment, modern recreation room and pool.

Newburgh is using her Keller Williams Realty page to attract an ideal buyer.

“(The property is for) somebody who wants to be near Boston but would love to live in New Hampshire or Maine and have his privacy and, in fact, his own mini-estate,” she said. “You can create your own world out there.”

Like Ryan, Newburgh’s client is looking to leave his multimillion dollar home for something smaller.

Hammond Residential Real Estate agent Lucille Boucini can relate to that search. She is using the Internet and national newspapers to try to draw buyers to a 14,413-square-foot Framingham house, listed for $2.9 million.

The house was built by its current owners. With their three children grown up and moved out, they now want to downsize.

Built in 2001, the Greek Revival colonial home at 78 Carter Drive has four finished floors, seven suite-style bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms. There are two kitchens, six fireplaces, an exercise room, a 20-seat theater, a billiard room, a heated outdoor pool and a small putting green. Boston – about 20 miles away – can be seen from the property’s balconies and backyard.

The home has had some showings, Boucini said, but has yet to find the right match. She hopes advertising the home internationally will attract “somebody who’s looking for a really high-end property with views of Boston.”

At $208 a square foot, Boucini said, hopefully, that the price and quality is “impossible to duplicate.”

(Julie Balise can be reached at 508-634-7546 or jbalise@wickedlocal.com.)