patrick.net

Bm05211983 says

Renters are losers

.... and your mom is a whore. What your point?

corntrollio says

That's why Case-Shiller's methodology is generally better than pure median.

I have to say, though, that the middle third tracks pretty damn well in this chart. Separating into thirds helps understand the boom/bust of the mid 2000s for sure. That is where a more refined analysis that includes raw data where practical is definitely useful. However, the previous discussion which now appears to be gone is looking long-term...30 years. From your graph I can see that all thirds tracked tightly from 87 to 01. And now they are returning back to that tight tracking now in 14. Seems like the medians are returning. Hmmmm....

Oh, and that the middle third held the average/median pretty well.

Oops I liked my own comment, when I meant to click edit. haha

evilmonkeyboy says

Bm05211983 says

Renters are losers

.... and your mom is a whore. What your point?

Nice. I was hoping Patrick had dumped this BM troll.

JH says

However, the previous discussion which now appears to be gone is looking long-term...30 years. From your graph I can see that all thirds tracked tightly from 87 to 01. And now they are returning back to that tight tracking now in 14. Seems like the medians are returning. Hmmmm....

Oh, and that the middle third held the average/median pretty well.

Over the long term, some of this averages out, sure. In the short-term, different things can happen. If you zoom in on the 1989-1990 peak and the subsequent bust, you can see that it wasn't exactly all together, but it looks like it now when you zoom out to the larger picture. The lines may converge a bit going forward, they may not. We'll see.

Part of what has changed medians dramatically now vs. 2008-2011 or so, is that a lot of the foreclosures and short sales that composed more of the sales are now gone, but they had made Case-Shiller tank like crazy then. A lot more of the high-priced stuff is selling overall vs. the last few years right now.

In addition, the high flying equity market is making ultra-high-end places trade at crazy valuations right now, which is bringing everything up as people fill in the gap. The mix of housing always matters for median in the short-term, and it makes it hard to compare things across different periods sometimes too.

Note also that Case-Shiller tiers are determined by the first purchase price in the pair, not the second.