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Go figure ~ it’s all in the numbers!
News about home sales and prices is everywhere – from newspapers to television to radio. That means home buyers regularly come across words such as average, mean and median.
It can be confusing and they look to REALTORS® to decipher the sometimes complex language of real estate.
Here are some explanations to help you
- Mean: is an average that is arrived at by taking a range of home prices and dividing them by the number of units sold. If 12 homes sell in a price range from $220,000 to $690,000, the mean average price is determined by adding all of the sales prices and then dividing by 12.
- Median: is the middle value. If 12 homes sell in a price range from $220,000 to $690,000, the median price is determined by arranging the sales prices from the lowest to highest. The media is the number in the middle.
For many decades, the mean and median average were standard industry measures for recording sales activity.
But these measures were not always accurate. In a neighborhood where 11 homes sell in the range of $650,000 to $850,000, and one home sells for $1.3 million, the average or mean will be significantly skewed.
The Housing Price Index (HPI)
For accuracy, the Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley Real Estate Boards developed the HPI, a tool to measure market activity.
The HPI is a measure of price change, for a set time period, for residential properties. It provides the most reliable information on housing price trends.
It’s modeled on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the rate of price change for a basket of goods and services including food, clothing, shelter, and transportation.
But instead of measuring goods and services, the HPI measures the change in the price of housing features such as lot size, number of rooms, age of the home and neighborhood.
The HPI tracks movement of mid-range priced homes and excludes extremely high and low priced properties.
Find those numbers
Where can I find the stats package? Where can I find the sales to listings ratio? What is the average price of a townhouse in Coquitlam? What about an attached home in Burnaby?
Everyday members phone the Board with questions about MLS® statistics. Quickly find the numbers you seek by visiting the new www.realtorlink.ca.
- The REBGV Stats Package for the Media
On www.realtorlink.ca go to the Greater Vancouver home page, under Latest Statistics and Hot Sheets. This six-page release sent to the media includes:• News Release: a summary of the current month’s sales, prices and bright spots, with commentary by the Board president.
• MLSLink Housing Price Index: benchmark prices for the current month by type of unit (detached, attached, apartment), by community, e.g. Burnaby, Coquitlam and the percentage change compared to one year ago, three years ago and five years ago.
• MLS® Sales Facts: for the current month including the number of sales by unit (detached, attached, apartment) and the median selling price by community, with comparisons to the previous month, the previous year, and year to date.
• MLS® Listings Facts: for the current month including the number of listings by unit (detached, attached, apartment) and % sales to listings (the sales to listings ratio) by community, with comparisons to the previous month, the previous year, and year to date.
• Listings & Sales Activity Summary: for the current month by community and then type of unit compared to the previous month and the previous year.
• Average Price Graph: average prices by type of unit from 1977 to present. -
Latest statistics and hot sheets: go to Statistics and HotSheets. Here you will find licensees, active and sold listings, the average price graph from 1977, MLS® listings facts, sales facts, active and sold listings, sales summary for residential and for commercial, the HPI, municipal graphs, price ranges, and the MLS® detailed sheet.
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Historical statistics: go to Statistics and HotSheets, scroll down to the bottom of the page and select Great Vancouver. There are archived stats for licensees, RealtyLink (page views), and Sales, which includes the Housing Price Index, listed vs sold (catalog graphs), MLS® Listings Facts, MLS® Sales Facts and more.
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HPI benchmark property description: go to Statistics and Hotsheets, then to the HPI folder. Go to MLSLink HPI benchmark property descriptions.
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Average price in an area: go to www.bcalink.ca, log on with your RealtorLink login and password, select the Listings Tools tab and then Sales Summary. Choose your area and your property types, for example, Richmond, All Residential, and the month and year. Remember to select New and Resale. Then press Go. Stats also include the sales to listings ratio, the number of listings and the number of solds per month.
