Released: December 02, 2006

The housing median is the message

Source: Kenneth R. Harney, Washington Post (Free Registration)

You might have seen the scary news reports just before Thanksgiving: Housing prices fell nationwide last quarter, the first such decline since 1993. Even grimmer, total sales of houses and condominiums across the country plunged by 12.7 percent, compared with the third quarter of 2005.

Omigod, you might have wondered, is this the long-predicted popping of the housing-boom bubble or the beginning of an extended period of eroding values in American home real estate? How bad could it get in the months ahead? And what might that mean for the equity I’ve got in the home I own?

Before considering those questions, it’s important to focus precisely on the statistical data that drew all the sobering news coverage. The third-quarter median prices and sales numbers were generated from local, state and regional data collected by the National Association of Realtors. The association has been compiling these statistics since 1981 in the case of housing sales and since 1982 for prices.

Although the realty association might be viewed as having an ax to grind, its quarterly reports on median prices and sales generally are viewed as authoritative by economists and are cited by the federal government.

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