A refresher course in Statistics 101 is what Schwartz needs. He argues that the average is preferable to the median because high-end mansions skew the latter? Actually is the other way around: we use the median because it is less sensitive to changes in the most expensive houses.
Actually, price drops in mid-range houses will be more readily captured by the median, rather than the mean.
His other comment is about the seasonal character of this business. Well, duh! that’s why we compare June 06 to June 05, so that we have an apples to apples comparison.
Other than my points above, I agree with Schwartz’s article’s main points: we are heading towards some serious depreciation, even in nominal terms.
I noticed he’s not a full-time RE guy, as he also has interests in Internet businesses, which probably make him far less biased than the typical contributors in Realtytimes.
