Fun with Numbers

Even though there are sporadic reports that median home prices inched up slightly in April compared to March, generally median sales prices have been down across the board for some time.

The median sales price is the price point where half the homes sold for more and half sold for less. One of the problems with "median" is that it's often thought to be an indicator of overall value of homes. But in our current market, most of the activity has shifted to lower priced homes. In some parts of the larger Bay area, these sales are dominated by foreclosures.

In Marin county, here's a little graph that shows this change:

This year so far there are almost 20% more properties selling in the below $1million range than was the case in any of the previous four years.

I like to think of "median" as more of an indicator of where the action is. There are better measures of value.