Separate, barely, and not equal

The real estate slump is not hitting all Massachusetts communities -- and home sellers -- equally, as the experience of these two houses less than 20 miles apart shows. And even among a clutch of neighboring communities, the time it takes to sell a home can vary greatly. In Franklin, for example, single-family homes took on average 102 days to sell this spring, according to the Multiple Listings Service Property Information Network Inc., which provided data on home sales between March 1 and June 30. In Foxborough, the average was 156 days. And in two other neighboring communities, Medway and Norfolk, the average days- on-market for single-family homes were 164 days and 158 days, respectively.