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CAN NATIONAL STATISTICS SAY ANYTHING USEFUL ABOUT HOME PURCHASES?

The national news is full of market statistics: The S&P Case/Shiller Index, Census Bureau New housing construction starts, Moody's, etc.
Many of these figures are national and some are regional, but do they really tell you? Is there any useful information regarding the real estate market that you can use?
Not really.
What they do show is an idea of national economic trends. Lovely numbers that can be utilized by politicians, business people, news agencies and pundits to paint broad swaths of colorful information and distill some information on the state of the national economy.
Real estate is a local market, not national.With the few exceptions of real estate moguls or derivative traders who are looking at buying and selling mortgages or blocks of property across the country.
Each market, or what I refer to as "Micro-markets", reflect trends in a specific neighborhood. This is the information which you as a home owner, buyer, seller or real estate agent need to be concerned.

Let's take the Case/Shiller index as an example. It is an index that represents 20 Metropolitan Statistical Areas. So, assuming that you actually live in one of these areas, what does it say about your market?

Let's take the San Francisco Metro Area which spans a wide variety of communities and cities: San Francisco, Oakland, Tracy, Vallejo, Hayward, Berkeley, Orinda, Pleasant Hill, Stockton and many more. The price ranges of properties in those communities, size of homes, crime rates and other factors cover the entire spectrum from ultra-expensive to bargain-basement.
The median home price in Mill Valley across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco is about $1.3 Million. Across the bay in Richmond the median price is $156,861. What happens when you average those?
Nothing!
You get a meaningless number that represents NO area in either community or in between.
(The old lesson about statistics...if you have 100 results at a value of " 1" and 100 results at a value of "100" the statistical average is 50. However the actual results have NO outcome for 50. So the average expresses nothing about the reality of the data.)
As I've said: real estate is a local market and influenced by many factors from neighborhood to neighborhood: crime rate, number of foreclosures, public transportation, school districts, amenities, etc.
Even a small city like San Francisco that is only 7 miles square, there are huge disparity in average prices.
The Sea Cliff area on the North West Corner of The City has current listings ranging from $2.1 Million to $10 Million and no foreclosures. In the opposite corner, Bayview District in the South East has prices ranging from $249K to $1.1 Million and 254 foreclosures. Combining these figures says very little about the sales, situation or valuation as a whole even within the small geographic region.
The public at large, economists and politicians can play all they like with national or regional real estate market statistics. They can do wonders for manipulating the mood of the country and the business community. But the information is of little practical use to the large majority of Americans.
Whatever "expert" is quoting statistics, citing claims, or otherwise manipulating information to color their own point, always listen with a critical ear. Every bit of information needs context and analysis.
If you want information that is meaningful to home owners, agents, buyers and sellers of real estate, don't look at the highly publicized numbers, don't listen to the national news: look to what's happening in your neighborhood.