1 - The median apartment this year may be different than the median apartment 3 years ago. Perhaps cheaper (or smaller) apartments and houses are coming up for rent. A more accurate measure would be comparing the prior rents to new rents for existing places.
2 - Median doesn't equal mean. The 50th percentile apartment may be cheaper, while the 25th (more applicable for housing affordability discussion) or 75th (more applicable to HN readers) may be higher.
3 - The median is still up 20% over pre-pandemic levels.
4 - To measure housing shortage we should check levels of homelessness based on economic reasons. (Much more complicated than median price)
1 - The median apartment this year may be different than the median apartment 3 years ago. Perhaps cheaper (or smaller) apartments and houses are coming up for rent. A more accurate measure would be comparing the prior rents to new rents for existing places.
2 - Median doesn't equal mean. The 50th percentile apartment may be cheaper, while the 25th (more applicable for housing affordability discussion) or 75th (more applicable to HN readers) may be higher.
3 - The median is still up 20% over pre-pandemic levels.
4 - To measure housing shortage we should check levels of homelessness based on economic reasons. (Much more complicated than median price)