Through a chain started at information aesthetics I happened upon a list of average and median home prices at Trulia.
First thing I wondered was, what’s the egalitarian factor?
Egalitarian factor?
Well, if the average price is way, way higher than the median price, you gotta figure that a few big numbers pull the average up, leaving the median as a better indicator of intuitive price. So, divide the median by the average and you have a number that goes up as the prices are more egalitarian. Don’t you?
Here are the results for today’s numbers:
State Factor Average Median District Of Columbia 1.15 627362 720000 Iowa 0.84 180103 150500 Nebraska 0.82 182592 150000 Wisconsin 0.82 241716 198000 Virginia 0.72 459543 329900 Washington 0.71 430707 305950 New Hampshire 0.70 371624 259500 Alaska 0.67 315929 210700 Maryland 0.64 496329 320000 Ohio 0.64 209321 133358 Minnesota 0.63 311943 196812 Kentucky 0.63 213286 134500 New Jersey 0.62 549482 342000 California 0.61 737454 452000 Nevada 0.61 511755 309995 Illinois 0.59 386626 230000 Louisiana 0.59 279841 165000 Pennsylvania 0.59 305138 179900 Oregon 0.59 416287 244900 Rhode Island 0.58 457480 265000 Delaware 0.56 426997 237000 Arkansas 0.55 222335 123000 Massachusetts 0.55 563596 310000 Texas 0.55 265163 144900 Hawaii 0.54 963770 522000 Arizona 0.54 459513 248229 Alabama 0.53 272234 145000 Georgia 0.53 323621 172000 New York 0.52 666838 350000 North Dakota 0.52 169117 88600 Florida 0.52 454882 236000 Oklahoma 0.51 206465 106000 Tennessee 0.51 261497 132500 Colorado 0.50 475910 240000 Michigan 0.50 246792 123192 Maine 0.49 316602 155300 West Virginia 0.47 223331 105000 South Dakota 0.46 222642 101700 Vermont 0.42 377453 159355 North Carolina 0.41 330054 136149 Missouri 0.39 218186 84624 South Carolina 0.38 340385 129900 Connecticut 0.37 707500 260000 Mississippi 0.34 241566 82700 New Mexico 0.34 374934 127503 Montana 0.31 485158 151300 Indiana 0.31 204847 63655 Kansas 0.30 197649 59044 Utah 0.26 501207 129000 Wyoming 0.23 569040 130702 Idaho 0.21 413325 85000
So, there is it, folks. DC is the most egalitarian “state”. In fact, you really must wonder about a place where the average is apparently pulled down by a few small numbers. Maybe there are a few houses in DC that people have paid a lot of money to get rid of. Not, mind you, the White House. Anyway, it’s interesting that the US government bureaucrat states of DC, Maryland, and Virgina are near the top of the list. Do such states disproportionately use apartments for low-end housing, taking the low numbers off the stats?
Some other interesting things in this list:
1) Washington state is pretty high on the list. Notice that I’ve ordered the list egalitarian-on-top.
2) The state names are colored by median price. Higher price, more red, less blue. And the reverse. I think that in a country where people are free to live where they want, it makes sense that the high end places are more “egalitarian”, even if there were not arithmetic reasons for this.
2) What’s with Kansas? Neighbors Iowa and Nebraska are similarly low priced and at the top of the list, but Kansas is at the bottom. Are a few rich people building houses in Kansas (can you say “Montana” or “Idaho”)?