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We actually explored this a bit in our last post: https://www.openlistings.com/blog/sorry-sf-housing-prices-are-only-falling-for-the-one-percent/ https://www.op
by rgbrgb 10y ago
We actually explored this a bit in our last post: https://www.openlistings.com/blog/sorry-sf-housing-prices-are-only-falling-for-the-one-percent/ https://www.openlistings.com/blog/sorry-sf-housing-prices-ar...
I agree that it can be misleading but it's the most common statistic used to describe the health of a real estate market. I think that's because it's rather robust to outliers. But, as we show in the post above, it's not robust to tightening / loosening of the price bands above and below median (e.g. median went down last month but the 1st quartile went up).
- Dr_tldr 10y agoBut isn't there a little bit of circular reasoning there? The median is the best statistic because it's the most common, and it's the most common statistic because it's the best. I'm not advocating for any other single-number analysis presentation, nor do I think the median number is totally meaningless, but you're leaving a lot of data out in the name of creating a simple chart without asking if it's informative.
- rgbrgb 10y agoYes, it would be circular had I concluded that median is best.