Median Price Statistic May Prove Faulty

The primary number being reported regarding home prices is the median. As you know, that number is the middle price; if all purchases are listed that price will be both higher than 50% and lower than 50% of the homes sold. So far so good.

But consider that the type of homes sold may be more lavish than the previous period, or the houses could be larger. Here is a quote from DQNews; "A total of 33,107 Golden State homes sold for a million dollars or more last year. That was up 73.5 percent from 19,080 in 2003. The total was 13,871 in 2002...A million dollars just isn't what it used to be when it comes to California real estate."

In the future I will look for more objective data, such as price per square foot.