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Comment by tomblomfield | Hacker News Reader

"Fewer than half of first-time home buyers in Silicon Valley, including in places like Palo Alto, Calif., can afford to purchase a median-priced home"

Half of people purchase homes that are below the median price.

Thanks for the insight there, NYT.

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I thought America was over the house-horniness of the early 2000s?

Why is the inability to buy a home in one of the most expensive areas of the US a danger sign? Do you read articles about not being able to afford homes in Manhattan? It's a given!

Actually, housing affordability is almost always a policy issue.

This must mean that first-time buyers more often than not can not purchase a median-priced house, (ie. the median-priced housing segment is largely unavailable to first-time buyers because either the median price is too high or the capital of first-time buyers is too low).

If that's what the author is trying to say, my response is still, "So what?"

Is that a problem? If not, why bother reporting it?

I would expect a first time buyer to be in the market for a "starter" home - old, not-updated, small, slightly less desirable neighborhood, etc. Or, a condo instead of a single-family unit.

You're comparing the price people can afford to the price people are actually paying. For example, practically everyone can afford the median price of a pack of gum, but few car buyers can afford the median price of a Jaguar.

Also worth pointing out: the median-price is the price among all homebuyers. It's not necessarily true that half of a subset of those homebuyers can afford the median. For example, 100% of the highest-income homebuyers can afford the median-priced home, but roughly 0% of the lowest-income homebuyers can afford a median-priced home.

First time homebuyer's purchasing power and the price of homes are two different things, they don't have the same median.

According to the study referred to by the NYT article, the Silicon Valley Index, they are actually referring to the mean price and not the median. The caption makes sense with that correction.

Still doesn't take away from the improper use of a statistical term, as a journalist should know better (statistics is a required class for most journalism degrees).

A couple figures that would help here: - how much is "fewer than half" (49% and 1% are both "fewer than half")? - what is this metric in other places? (In general that's a good idea whenever anybody starts slinging unfamiliar statistics.)

I had the same reaction. I actually stopped reading after that. It was clear from that point that the article was pushing an agenda and would twist(probably from a lack of understanding) to support that agenda.

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