“Averaging” Dissimilar Things = Meaningless
What is the average weight of Laurel and Hardy?
Answer: if you “average” a 150 pound man and an 350 pound man, you get 250 pounds — and a totally meaningless statistic.
So, too, housing statistics that blend dissimilar markets — or even different neighborhoods within the same market — yield meaningless “averages.”
In a nutshell, that’s my beef with over broad housing benchmarks that purport to show a coherent picture of the “national” housing market.
Keep that in mind as you read the latest batch of statistics — due this week — reporting how home sales fared this Summer.
