What is a “normal” American home?

In my role as a developer here at Trulia, I find myself using our massive amounts of home information to answer random questions that interest me. I figured I would take the readers of the Trulia Blog along with me on one of my data journeys. This particular question came about because I am still a bit shocked by the crazy home prices out here in the SF Bay Area. I grew up in the Detroit, MI metro area, and the whole idea that you have to be semi-rich to own a home is quite a culture shock for those making the move I did. This led me to wonder: What exactly is “normal” for the price of a basic 2 bed, 2 bath home? And where exactly can you expect huge deviations from this norm? In other words, it’s one thing to have a city full of huge mansions that everyone knows are expensive, but where do even the homes that most would consider “basic” places carry significant price tags?

Let’s start with the median value of a 2 bed, 2 bath home. For everyone who hasn’t opened a stats book in a while, the median is the value that comes from lining up all values in order and picking the one that is exactly in the middle. Using the Trulia database, I can’t only say that the median value is $249,900, but I can also say that the property that represents the median in Trulia’s database is this condo in Sarasota, FL.

So let’s take this concept city by city - here are eight median 2 bed/2 bath properties on Trulia in cities far more expensive than my hometown. Because it’s the median, the actual homes in the Trulia database will change. But they (and their price tags) are interesting none-the-less.

1. Coronado, CA - 120 C Ave, $1,579,000
2. Laguna Beach, CA - 990 Meadowlark Dr, $1,350,876
3. New York, NY - 300 E 40th St, $1,295,000
4. Malibu, CA - 6435 Zumirez Dr, $1,130,000
5. Islamorada, FL - 101 Gulfview Dr, $910,000
6. Newport Beach, CA - 280 Cagney Ln, $829,000
7. San Francisco, CA - 1011 23rd St, $815,000
8. La Jolla, CA - 5366 La Jolla Blvd, $799,876

So what have we learned? Don’t live in California. Okay, just kidding, but I learned that you can literally sell your middle-of-the road Laguna Beach home and get the mansion of your dreams in 95% of the US (MTV reality show not included). As for me, I work in San Francisco and am anchored to the Bay Area for the foreseeable future. Luckily, all this doesn’t really matter to me because I plan on winning the lottery. If anyone has any pointers on how to do this or can put me in contact with this guy, please leave a comment.