The Median Sale Price as reported by Dataquick for a home in the OC was $400,000 – which brings us back to May of 2003 if you’re tracking the bust backwards.  Lansner states, “That means that 53% of the 1996 to 2007 profit has evaporated.”

I found some other interesting tidbits on the DQNews site to report:

• 44.2% of sales in Orange County in the month of November were foreclosures.
• Sales volume is up 38.9% in November ’08 as compared to November ’07 numbers.
• Median sales price is down 31.4% from the median sales price in November ’07.

I want to draw your attention to one common misconception.  Take yourself back to your statistics class (come on now – don’t kick and scream like that – it will be a brief visit, I promise).  Remember the definition of median.  Dictionary.com defines ‘Median’ as “the middle number in a given sequence of numbers”.

Look at the above statistic and look at it with that definition now applied.  Median is not the average.  It just means that if there are 5 sales – the price of the number 3 sale is the median home price.

You cannot draw the conclusion that prices have all fallen 31.4% when comparing November ’07 and ’08 median home price figures.  Remember that 44.2% of the sales in November were foreclosures.  Much of the movement in our market is in the lower price points and in the most distressed price points – hence a lower median price.

Median home price is still a valuable indicator in the market but you must be careful of the conclusion you draw from the information.  There is no denying prices have fallen precipitously.  But, I do think it’s important to evaluate the numbers in the right context.

Okay – statistics class dismissed.