bostonbubble.com

[Phil O. Math]

I was thinking that it would be really useful if we were able to calculate what median home prices and the average price/sqft should be.

It seems like this would be a fairly straightforward calculation. You start with the historic ratio of average home price to median income of a certain area, say 3. Then if you know what the median income is for a certain area you can multiply that by the historic ratio and this is what the average home price should be. If you then know what the average home square footage in the area is then you can determine the average price/sqft.

Then when you're looking at a home you have a starting point for what the price of the home would be (you would, of course, adjust this up or down depending on other features like granite countertops, appliances, size of yard, age of the furnace, etc).

I feel like this would give prospective buyers some good information to pass along to sellers and sellers agents when making an offer that appears to differ radically from asking price.

So the information you would need is:
1. Local median income data
2. Local historical average home price/ median income ratio
3. Local average home size

Does anyone know where I can get all this data? Does this calculation seem reasonable, not overly simplistic?