A TWO-STORY HOUSING MARKET: Lower-priced homes sell quickly while inventory on the higher end piles up.

A two-bedroom house in Los Angeles listed for $585,000 received 10 offers in the first week it hit the market, with the winner agreeing to pay $640,000.

Meanwhile, a four-bedroom house a few miles away, priced at $3 million, sat on the market for more than a month with no offers before selling for $2.75 million in January.

The divide in Los Angeles is typical of what is happening across the country. Housing has become a tale of two markets, brokers and economists said, with lower-priced homes selling quickly even as inventory of expensive ones piles up.

It’s difficult to accept that spending two-thirds of a million dollars on a two-bedroom house is “lower-priced.”