Are we seeing Home Pricing bottoming or Reversing in Middlesex County, New Jersey? (Median added)

In our three last blogs about Sold Home prices in Middlesex County, New Jersey we used the Average as the statistical measure:

Are we seeing Home Pricing bottoming or reversing in Middlesex County, New Jersey? Part #1

Are we seeing Home Pricing bottoming or reversing in Middlesex County, New Jersey? Part #2

Are we seeing Home Pricing bottoming or reversing in Middlesex County, New Jersey? Part #3

We are now providing the same charts and numbers but using the Median as the statistical measure.

We understand the Median can be useful as an additional measure/tool trying to make sense of the bigger picture.

Quick reminder Average Vs Median:

Let’s consider 5 Home Prices in a neighborhood:

$60,000 (foreclosure)

$98,000

$100,000

$100,599

$102,000

Averages (add all prices and divide by number of houses): $92,119.8

Median (middle price, not affected by extremes): $100,000

Which one of those numbers do you think is providing a better market capture? Again, both numbers are useful in understanding the bigger picture. However let’s say you are a first time home buyers and you don’t want to deal with any foreclosure, then the Median will provide you with a better number in term of what you should expect paying for a home in that neighborhood.

Again, the median is just an additional tool and nothing more or less to better understand the local market.

So here it goes the numbers and graphs:

Average	Nov-08	Dec-08	Jan-09	Feb-09
	$346,413	$334,524	$363,115	$348,075
Median	Nov-08	Dec-08	Jan-09	Feb-09
	$320,500	$305,000	$320,000	$320,000