Median Prices Up. Here's Why.

Two things to know about this article from today's Chron...1) It tells you everything you need to know about why the median price of SF and Marin real estate continues to rise despite dropping unit sales, and 2) James Temple, the writer of this article, is the same guy who wrote Friday's doom and gloom piece that we we linked to in our previous post.

It's this second point that illuminates our running pleas not to read too much into what you see in the newspaper. On consecutive days, the Chron's lead real estate article informed readers, first, that the market is at a 20-year low, and second, that "people are willing to pay ever higher prices for luxury Bay Area real estate." While both things are technically true, we feel that this kind of reporting makes it very difficult for owners, buyers, and sellers of Bay Area real estate to form an accurate opinion of the strength of the market. As ever, we merely wish that the papers focused more on the bigger picture and the longterm view than on headline-grabbing or heartstring-tugging case studies.