Statewide Median Home Prices Hit New High
Santa Clarita posts highest median home price increase in the state.
The January home sales statistics are now in, showing that the Santa Clarita area posted the highest median price gain in the state of California with a whopping 30.8 percent gain.
What does this mean? Does this mean that Santa Clarita home prices jumped 30.8 percent? Well, not really… statistics can be a bit misleading if you don’t know what they mean. And these statistics don’t include ALL of Santa Clarita, only the areas with Santa Clarita in their address. Confused? Keep reading and this will become clearer!
The definition of "median" is the midpoint in a series of numbers, where half the data values are above the median, and half are below. In housing terms, half the homes sold were above that price, and half the homes sold were below that price.
When the median price goes up, it can mean a lot of things. It can mean that overall housing prices are increasing, or it can mean that the more expensive homes are selling more than less expensive homes, or that more single family homes are selling than condos and townhomes. Either way, it is often seen as an indicator that the housing market is getting more healthy when the median price goes up, even if it is clearly misleading data.
Below are the results per area within the Santa Clarita Valley according to the California Association of Realtors (CAR) compiled from data provided by DataQuick.
Note that the median price in most Santa Clarita areas went down, rather than up. Remember that this means that half the homes sold at a price lower than the median, and half the homes sold at a price higher than the median. So these numbers don’t mean that the sky is falling and the market is going is going into a tailspin, it just means that more of the less expensive homes were sold in January 2007 than in January 2006. This also combines all types of housing: condos, townhomes, and single family homes as well as new construction and existing homes. These numbers can also be skewed if there aren’t a lot of home sales for a particular area, since only a few numbers would be used to calculate the median price.
| Area | Jan ‘07 | Jan ‘06 | % Change |
| Canyon Country | $506,250 | $477,000 | 6.1% |
| Castaic | $605,000 | $617,500 | -2.0% |
| Santa Clarita | $531,000 | $406,000 | 30.8% |
| Stevenson Ranch | $525,000 | $801,250 | -34.5% |
| Valencia | $559,000 | $572,000 | -2.3% |
The bottom line is that reviewing sales statistics is only a starting point for discovering how the housing market is performing. You’d be hard pressed to find single family homes in the Stevenson Ranch and Valencia areas at $525,0000 and $559,000 as indicated in the table, so these numbers clearly include a lot of condos and townhomes. To more properly analyze the market activity, you’d really have to pull data for single family homes separately from the condos and townhomes.
As a home buyer or seller, your best statistics to review are those of the local area that you’re looking to buy or sell in. The true value of a home is what a typical buyer would be willing pay for a home, considering size, location, condition and amenities.
In the Santa Clarita area you must also pay special attention to comparing similar homes, which is pretty easy to do with our heavy use of tract codes in our market data. Pricing just by zip code and square footage won’t cut it here.
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