I had a client email me this morning about a statistic he read this weekend in the OC Register. According to DQ News, the median price in his 92808 zip code is down 35% over last year. Is it really that bad, he asked? No. (Thankfully) These reports are helpful, but also very misleading because they do not report on housing types. Since it’s the median pricing report, it’s more reflective of activity than pricing. In other words, if we had a lot more condo activity than higher end activity, the median values would be down, even if values are up. Here’s how we come up with home value statistics for our clients. For single family homes between 2500 and 3500 square feet in the 92808 zip code, 12 properties closed in the first 4 months of 2010 at $257 per sf. This year, 14 properties closed at $239 per sf. As such, we estimate that home prices for this client's sized home are down 7% over last year. The bottom line on statistics is you have to ask specific questions to get a specific answer. Median housing prices are not a true measure of housing value trends. Median simply means that half the homes sold for more and half the homes sold for less. A condo boom, for example, might erroneously suggest that the market was crashing.