If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.  Our site traffic statistics (and ad revenue) tell us we missed the mark with recent charts but we hope this batch breaks the mold.

 

Even as sales volume remains weak, Santa Clara County median prices popped to new all-time highs over the last few weeks.    As presented earlier, volume is down year-over-year (y-o-y), year-over-two-years (y-o-2y) and year-over-three-years (y-o-3y), yet median prices are up --and up strongly!

 

Anecdotally, recent price strength is due to houses at the bottom of the food chain failing to sell, while higher-end inventory continues to turn over.  While this seems likely, particularly here where we live, is it really true?  Is the median really going up only because fewer and fewer people are able, or willing, to buy low-, or even mid-range, houses?  Has the "bottom" fallen out of the market?

 

If the anecdotes are true, the houses still changing hands should be getting bigger.  The median "price per square foot" we see each week from DataQuick, by itself, doesn't tell us much..  However, multiplying the median price by the median price per square foot yields a potentially-useful statistic: "Implied Median Size."

 

We hope you find this new statistic useful.