When you look at the newspaper, usually you see only one statistic or maybe 2 concerning San Diego County real estate market rends. The one that is most often shown is the latest median price of homes that have recently sold. First of all this number is for the entire San Diego County market and for all types of properties. Do you think this latest revelation is very meaningful to you? Well, it really isn’t. But make no mistake about it, market trends and statistics are important to both a buyer and a seller; however the only trends and statistics that are really important to you is for your “local” market. What’s a local market? This is the area that surrounds the subject property. That area is usually a mile, but not more than two miles. If you are a seller, you need these stats to help price your property for sale. If you are a buyer you need these stats to help you make a realistic offer to purchase. If you are a seller, having your agent provide you with these stats is really the first step in determining the asking price of your property. This is not a CMA (comparative market analysis); it is called a Comparative Market Activity report. The next step would be a CMA. Here are some of the items that would be valuable to a seller and buyer to know. They will be shown as a percentage of the homes sold. How many of the recent sold properties offered concessions, what was the average market time, what is the architectural style, how many homes were owner occupied, how many had sales restrictions, how many were REOs (foreclosures), how many were 1 story or 2, how many sere sold with conventional- FHA- VA and seller financing. If you are a condo buyer, what is the percentage of condos that are owner occupied and what were the HOA fees. Up coming blogs will get much more specific with examples on what stats you should be looking for and why those stats may be important.