It’s time once again in our Daily Data Discussion to look at median home prices, and today we’ll start by looking at the markets in our database with the highest median single family home prices in the country. 

For those who see the word “median home price” and immediately have an impulse to email us and tell us what idiots we are for even using the term “median home price” – don’t bother today.  We have a large stack of emails saying just that already in hand. 

While we agree with much of what the median home price naysayers proffer – we still find it an interesting metric to track and discuss occasionally, and will continue to do so along with lots of other professionals looking at the industry.  

We are going to pen an article for The Emerging Market Report Newsletter in the next few months reviewing in detail some of the debate regarding the weaknesses and purported evils of using median home prices for analytical purposes. 

One additional comment – you’d be amazed what a challenge it is to round up median home price numbers particularly for some of the larger metroplexes and for the more real estate challenged markets around the country.  Lots of agencies responsible for the data simply don’t want to share it, and almost without question there are multiple median price numbers floating around in a given market on any given day. 

Enough rambling – here are the markets in our database as of today with the greatest, and might we say impressive, median home prices –

1)  San Francisco, CA  $680,000
2)  Seattle, WA   $450,000
3)  Los Angeles, CA  $412,000
4)  Oakland, CA   $400,000
5)  Boulder, CO   $394,500

Database Median:  $181,633
Database Average:  $159,600

Tomorrow we’ll look at markets around the country with some of the lowest median home price values around. 

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