We are at the end of another month, which means it’s time for me to do what I do every month: dig into the numbers and figure out what is really happening in the real estate market.

I am a self-confessed “stats hound,” and I wear the title proudly.

But today, I’m going to poke a little fun at myself, because statistics can be wonderfully useful… and wonderfully manipulative.

Give me enough numbers and I can probably make the market sound terrific, terrible, or somewhere in between.

For example, here are two perfectly accurate headlines about the Oshawa real estate market in August:

Oshawa home prices dropped by $65,000 last month, falling to an average of $715,000!

And…

15% of all Oshawa homes sold for more than $900,000 in August!

So which headline is correct?

Both.

And both are also a little misleading.

That is the magic trick with statistics. You simply “cherry-pick” the number that best supports the story you want to tell.

So rather than play that game, let’s look at what actually happened.

The average sale price in Oshawa for August was $715,000. There were 87 homes sold, and if you add up every sale price and divide the total by 87, that is the number you get.

Simple enough.

But there is another useful number: the median price.

The median is the midpoint, where half the homes sold above that price and half sold below it.

In August, the median sale price was $700,000.

Already, that gives us a slightly different picture.

Now let’s dig a little deeper.

Price Range	Number of Sales
$0 – $400,000	2
$400,000 – $500,000	5
$500,000 – $600,000	13
$600,000 – $700,000	24
$700,000 – $800,000	21
$800,000 – $900,000	10
$900,000 – $1,000,000	7
$1,000,000+	5

Now the picture becomes much clearer.

More than half of all sales took place between $600,000 and $800,000, which explains why the average landed at $715,000.

But here is the part that gets lost if you only read the scary headline:

Twenty-two homes sold for more than $800,000.

That matters.

News organizations love a dramatic statistic because “Market Behaves More or Less Normally” is a terrible headline.

“Prices Plunge!” gets considerably more attention.

The problem is that most consumers do not have the time, data, or desire to dig underneath the headline. So a single statistic can quickly become the entire story.

The market we are in now is transitional.

People are cautious. The world feels unsettled, the economy keeps sending mixed signals, and buyers are trying to figure out what comes next.

That reaction is understandable.

But while some buyers are standing on the sidelines, others are quietly making moves.

In August, 22 Oshawa buyers purchased homes above $800,000.

Why?

Ask them and I suspect many would tell you something very simple: they believed they were getting value.

Not because they knew exactly what the market would do next. Nobody does.

But because they found a home they wanted, at a price they could justify, in a market where buyers currently have more negotiating power than they have had in years.

And that may be the more interesting story hiding inside the statistics.

Sometimes the headline tells you what happened.

The numbers underneath it tell you what it actually means.

If you’re curious whether this market is creating an opportunity for your next move, I’d be happy to dig into the numbers with you.

lindsay@buyselllove.ca
905-743-5555