Did the market go up or down in this hypothetical example?

a) Up
b) Down
c) flat
d) Not enough information to answer.
e) Not nearly enough information to answer.

I'll go with "e".

The median would've gone down 20%. The average would've gone down 4%. Sales went down 50%.

Which shows you how useless stats are in a given line/building/neighborhood/etc. E.g. if those two at $1.2M in 2009 were among the nine at $1M in 2007.

NWT, thank you. Yes, median down 20% and average down 4%, but individual units up 20% (if assume $500,000 --> $600,000 and $1MM to $1.2MM). Number of sales down 50%, similar to what happened in some quarters of 2009. So, WHY do so many people in the real estate business insist on reporting median and average prices, ESPECIALLY in this market?

they have to earn money somehow... so they use the more or less useless numbers to come up with reports that they get paid for.

if they would have at least broke down the results into renovated/unrenovated, the figures would have more meaning. views (brick wall/open) would make it significantly clearer. then go the extra step of under 1000 sf and over, would give us something really useful.

Because we all like data, and they've got to report *something*. And we can all interpret it however we want, which is always handy.

Fortunately there're always lots of contrary examples, which're fun to find and speculate upon.

ab_11218, yes, these reports are useless, and that's why occasionally some of the posters here stress the importance of comparables.

I think reporting these meaningless statistics obscures any really good analysis. I would guess that of the apartments that have sold in the past year, the majority are relatively lower priced ones for the first-time buyers who are taking advantage of the tax incentive. If so, then, of course, the median and average prices for the market as a whole are down. But at the same time, prices of some "desirable" properties are up, also reported in the press.

Gee that hypothetical looks awfully familiar.

> So, WHY do so many people in the real estate business insist on reporting median and average prices,
> ESPECIALLY in this market

Well, you have to report something.

And in the end, if you take all the apartment sales and find the midpoint, that number still has meaning. It tells you exactly where the middle is.

And for folks who want to get more granular, the problem is that becomes even less accurate, because there just isn't that much data.

So, median is the standard.