The trade group said median prices for existing single-family homes dropped in 100 of 149 metropolitan areas in the first quarter, while 48 metro areas saw prices increase and one reported no change. The Associated Press noted that the price declines in 67% of the areas surveyed in January-March was the largest percentage of declines since the survey started in 1979. Prices had fallen in 34% of the cities surveyed in the October-December survey.

For reference, here is the explanation of the difference between mean and median from Wikipedia:

Suppose 19 paupers and 1 billionaire are in a room. Everyone removes all the money from their pockets and puts it on a table. Each pauper puts $5 on the table; the billionaire puts $1 billion (i.e. $109) there. The total is then $1,000,000,095. If that money is divided equally among the 20 people, each gets $50,000,004.75.

That amount is the mean amount of money that the 20 people brought into the room. But the median amount is $5, since one may divide the group into two groups of 10 people each, and say that everyone in the first group brought in no more than $5, and each person in the second group brought in no less than $5. In a sense, the median is the amount that the typical person brought in. By contrast, the mean is not at all typical, since nobody in the room brought in an amount approximating $50,000,004.75.

If you live in an area where homes range from $200K for condos to massive $1 million + subdivisions, the "median" may not be a very useful number. What would be more useful is to have some sort of analysis of what a home that would have sold for $200K in 2007 would sell for today and what a home that would have sold for $1 million in 2007 would sell for today.

Posted by Suzanne Morris of Ideal Investment Corner