The median home price in your area has increased in the last 10 years, ?

Question

how does this differ from the mean home price in your area?

Answer 1

The median is the "middle" price, and in most populations of data is more useful than the mean, since the mean can be skewed by one or very high or very low values.

Consider a street with 10 houses at the following house prices:

$100,000

$100,000

$100,000

$100,000

$100,000

$100,000

$100,000

$100,000

$100,000

$1,000,000

The median price is $100,000, but the mean is $190,000...which is the more "realistic" picture of what houses on that street cost?

Answer 2

mean means average so lets say you have 5 houses. 2 cost $1.00 , 1 costs $30 and 2 cost $100.00

average price is 100+100+30+1+1 = 232/5 = $46.40

this leads you to believe that to live in an average house you need $46.40

median on the other hand means there are an equal number of houses  that cost more than that price as there are that cost less.

In this case $30.00 is the median.

Answer 3

Hello,

There is a difference between median and mean in this way:

Mean is the average; add them together and divide by how many are there.

Median is the middle amount in a list, in ascending order, of prices (or the average of the 2 middle if the numbers of prices is even).

If someone built a $1 million house in an area of $200,000 houses, the mean value will increase, but the median would only change slightly.  The list of prices would increase by one member for the median, which would move the "middle of the list" or median member only a little.

If this answer doesn't help, please add some more information and I'll be glad to continue helping.