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Old 03-09-2020, 02:57 PM
 
4,998 posts, read 3,846,695 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by matrix5k View Post
Why did Halifax increase so much? It's difficult to get there.
Some data, especially in smaller towns, can be very skewed I'd assume.

If there were only, say, 25 sales in 2019, major fluctuation should be expected.
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Old 03-09-2020, 07:59 PM
 
Location: Needham, MA
8,525 posts, read 13,904,246 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yellowstatus View Post
This is true of any summary statistic; you are summarizing with a tradeoff of collapsing the nuance. What statistics would you rather see to evaluate market conditions?
Personally, I think the only true measure of the real estate market is when the same house sells in consecutive years with minimal physical changes to the house between sales (maybe paint and carpet at the most). The houses, lots, and locations have so much irregularity to them that IMO even a statistic like a median sale price has already lost a lot of meaning. If you continue to average that out by converting it into a price per square foot metric then you've got a completely useless number. Just my opinion.
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Old 03-09-2020, 08:29 PM
 
Location: Westwood, MA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MikePRU View Post
Personally, I think the only true measure of the real estate market is when the same house sells in consecutive years with minimal physical changes to the house between sales (maybe paint and carpet at the most). The houses, lots, and locations have so much irregularity to them that IMO even a statistic like a median sale price has already lost a lot of meaning. If you continue to average that out by converting it into a price per square foot metric then you've got a completely useless number. Just my opinion.
This is akin to saying the only polls you trust are ones where they ask everyone.

It isn’t all or nothing. Of course statistical measures are imperfect, they are trying to reduce something that has a couple hundred million variables into a meaningful one or two. Some information will be lost. Median price per square foot is a meaningful number, though. Especially when coupled with median price.

Maybe it’s because statistics are frequently misused, but I hear this idea that they are not useful for real estate more than in other fields. Even baseball purists have begrubdigly accepted advanced statistics are worthwhile. THome prices are not that complicated and the numbers are quite large and, as these things go, quite definitive.
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Old 03-10-2020, 01:23 AM
 
24,510 posts, read 17,983,953 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jayrandom View Post
This is akin to saying the only polls you trust are ones where they ask everyone.

It isn’t all or nothing. Of course statistical measures are imperfect, they are trying to reduce something that has a couple hundred million variables into a meaningful one or two. Some information will be lost. Median price per square foot is a meaningful number, though. Especially when coupled with median price.

Maybe it’s because statistics are frequently misused, but I hear this idea that they are not useful for real estate more than in other fields. Even baseball purists have begrubdigly accepted advanced statistics are worthwhile. THome prices are not that complicated and the numbers are quite large and, as these things go, quite definitive.

It really depends on the town. If you're in Stepford where every house is a clone of the next one, sure. I live in a socioeconomically mixed town with oceanfront and gated summer communities. Median price and price per square foot are pretty much useless.
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Old 03-10-2020, 05:03 AM
 
Location: Westwood, MA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoffD View Post
It really depends on the town. If you're in Stepford where every house is a clone of the next one, sure. I live in a socioeconomically mixed town with oceanfront and gated summer communities. Median price and price per square foot are pretty much useless.
They may not reflect what you think they should, but they aren't useless. They report median values for the county, state, and entire country. Wherever you live is likely got less variety than the country as whole. I wouldn't use median values as the sole basis for determining the value of a single property--not even in Stepford--but it does have some descriptive power for understanding a town.
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Old 03-10-2020, 08:04 AM
 
Location: Boston
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yellowstatus View Post
I'm enjoying that sweet, sweet 41% Cambridge real estate increase. Or, these statistics are so incomparable that you can't draw conclusions about the market. At least normalize by per square foot and include condo sales.
This. Telling me the median home price is pretty meaningless if the average square footage of sold homes in one town is double that of another. If I'm not looking for a McMansion, how will I know what to expect to pay in a place like Weston when the median is being driven up by the sheer number of massive homes out there?

And yeah, without condo sales you just cut the number of data points in a place like Brookline or Cambridge in half, if not more.

Not saying there's not some useful information in here, but it can be misleading to someone who doesn't know better. To say Dover is more expensive than Newton is, frankly, rubbish. I've looked in both and Dover is a bargain compared to Newton when you consider you'll get double the square footage and land area in Dover compared to similarly priced homes in Newton.
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Old 03-10-2020, 08:12 AM
 
4,998 posts, read 3,846,695 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by id77 View Post
This. Telling me the median home price is pretty meaningless if the average square footage of sold homes in one town is double that of another. If I'm not looking for a McMansion, how will I know what to expect to pay in a place like Weston when the median is being driven up by the sheer number of massive homes out there?

And yeah, without condo sales you just cut the number of data points in a place like Brookline or Cambridge in half, if not more.

Not saying there's not some useful information in here, but it can be misleading to someone who doesn't know better. To say Dover is more expensive than Newton is, frankly, rubbish. I've looked in both and Dover is a bargain compared to Newton when you consider you'll get double the square footage and land area in Dover compared to similarly priced homes in Newton.
Look at the article. There is a link for condo sales, as I already said in response to yellow.
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Old 03-10-2020, 08:32 AM
 
Location: Needham, MA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jayrandom View Post
This is akin to saying the only polls you trust are ones where they ask everyone.
That's fair to say. I guess because this is my profession and people are dependent upon me to advise them during such a valuable transaction that I just don't feel comfortable relying upon statistics that are so "averaged out" so to speak.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jayrandom View Post
It isn’t all or nothing. Of course statistical measures are imperfect, they are trying to reduce something that has a couple hundred million variables into a meaningful one or two. Some information will be lost. Median price per square foot is a meaningful number, though. Especially when coupled with median price.
I'm not against the use of statistics. However, people need to realize that they are not the end all and be all. They most certainly don't tell the whole story and being that we have 10 real estate agents in every town all claiming to be #1 it's quite clear that statistics can be manipulated.

I would absolutely say that any statistic using a per square foot measure is entirely too "averaged out" to be very telling or accurate.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jayrandom View Post
Maybe it’s because statistics are frequently misused, but I hear this idea that they are not useful for real estate more than in other fields. Even baseball purists have begrubdigly accepted advanced statistics are worthwhile. THome prices are not that complicated and the numbers are quite large and, as these things go, quite definitive.
Statistics are used quite frequently in real estate. They're often misused and manipulated in this industry but they're definitely in play.

Personally, I tend to use more focused statistics. If you're selling a 3500 sq ft 4/2.5 colonial in the Bird's Hill section of Needham on a 0.23 acre lot, it's not terribly relevant what's happening in Norfolk County/Metrowest overall or even with 7,000 sf 6/6 colonials in Saddle Brook Estates.

There are just a lot of micro-markets within real estate where remarkably different things can be happening. So, it's typically more informative to look at the slice of the market most germane to your situation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by id77 View Post
This. Telling me the median home price is pretty meaningless if the average square footage of sold homes in one town is double that of another. If I'm not looking for a McMansion, how will I know what to expect to pay in a place like Weston when the median is being driven up by the sheer number of massive homes out there?
If you're seriously using PPSF from an entire town to value a single home then you're going to be off the mark every single time. I don't know any residential RE professional in this area who talks about PPSF. The only people I ever hear talk about PPSF are consumers who work in numbers oriented jobs (accountants, CFO's, etc.).

Regardless, your point about the make up of the market impacting the statistics is part of my point. Comparing median sale price in Newton to the same statistic in Dover is apples to oranges. It doesn't tell the whole story without a lot of additional information.

Quote:
Originally Posted by id77 View Post
Not saying there's not some useful information in here, but it can be misleading to someone who doesn't know better. To say Dover is more expensive than Newton is, frankly, rubbish. I've looked in both and Dover is a bargain compared to Newton when you consider you'll get double the square footage and land area in Dover compared to similarly priced homes in Newton.
Agreed. Dover and Newton are remarkably different markets and anyone just walking around comparing median values (whether you dumb it down further to PPSF or not) is not getting the whole story.
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Old 03-10-2020, 09:02 AM
 
Location: Bergen County, New Jersey
11,973 posts, read 7,732,396 times
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Yeah but most inner ring downs increased more than 15%.... Cambridge and Boston more than 40%. Thats scary.
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Old 03-10-2020, 10:14 AM
 
Location: Boston
2,411 posts, read 1,288,128 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MikePRU View Post
If you're seriously using PPSF from an entire town to value a single home then you're going to be off the mark every single time. I don't know any residential RE professional in this area who talks about PPSF. The only people I ever hear talk about PPSF are consumers who work in numbers oriented jobs (accountants, CFO's, etc.).
Towns/cities, no, but neighborhoods yes. I don't think there is a metric that can be used to give one a good idea city-wide for property. The reason being that there's dilution of any figure across neighborhoods - something in South Brookline just isn't going to be nearly as valuable as something in Coolidge Corner or Longwood, just as a home in Roslindale isn't in the same league as one in Beacon Hill.

However, I do think there's less variance in the outer suburbs and smaller towns. IME, the PPSF is going to be similar throughout an Essex or Ipswitch because there's not nearly as sharp of a demarcation between neighborhoods. I'd say Dover is also an example of this - for those looking to live in Dover, the location within Dover matters less than the property itself. By contrast, those looking in a Brookline or Newton are going to care as much or more about location as they are about the property.
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