Short answer. The median home price is the middle sale in a ranked list — half sold above, half below. The average (mean) is total sales revenue divided by number of sales. In 2024, the U.S. median existing price was $407,500; the mean runs roughly 20–25% higher due to luxury skew.
| Metric | 2024 Value | Definition | Best Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median existing price | $407,500 | Middle sale in ranked list | Typical buyer |
| Average (mean) price | ~$510,000+ | Sum ÷ count | Dollar volume |
| New home median | $458,200 | Census Bureau | Construction market |
| New home average | ~$530,000+ | Census Bureau | Total spend |
The distinction matters practically because U.S. home prices are not normally distributed — they have a long right tail of very expensive properties. This asymmetry means the mean is always higher than the median in housing data.
A concrete example
Suppose five homes sell in a neighborhood for $200,000, $210,000, $220,000, $240,000, and $2,000,000 (a teardown purchased by a developer). The median is $220,000 — the middle value. The mean is $574,000 — heavily skewed by the single outlier. Neither number is "wrong," but the median better describes what a typical buyer paid.
How much do they diverge?
NAR reports median prices; the U.S. Census Bureau reports both median and mean for new homes. In 2024, the Census Bureau reported a median new single-family price of $458,200 and a mean of approximately $514,900 — about 12% higher. The gap tends to widen in boom markets as luxury sales pull the mean upward.
When the average is useful
The mean is not useless — it is the correct denominator for calculating total housing market value. If you want to estimate the total dollar value of all homes sold in a year, you multiply units sold by the mean price, not the median. The mean also responds more quickly to shifts in the upper end of the market, which can be a leading indicator of broader price trends.
What the Housing Almanac reports
The annual series on this site uses median prices throughout: NAR's median existing-home price and Census's median new single-family price. These are the most comparable, most widely cited, and least distorted measures of what the "typical" home transaction looked like in any given year from 1963 to 2024.
Sources
National Association of Realtors Existing Home Sales; U.S. Census Bureau Survey of Construction (median and mean new-home prices); Bureau of Labor Statistics statistical guidance.
Related
- How is median home price calculated?
- Average U.S. home price by year
- Median home price history
- More Q&A