This post could also be called "The Dangers of Micro Market Analysis" as you'll discover...

The graph above shows that the median sales price of homes in Highland Park has increased 20% over the past year from $534K to $639K!

How could this be!?  I know home values are going up (10% in 2020) but are homes in Highland Park really increasing in value at a rate of 20% per year?

I believe this 20% increase in the median sales price is more related to which homes sold in each of the two years more than it is related to the value of homes in that neighborhood going up by 20% in a single year.

As you can imagine, if larger, more recently built, more upgraded or more updated homes sell in a given year compared to another - then the median sales price of homes that year will be higher.

And thus, this is the danger of analyzing a micro market -- a small amount of data points might lead you to incorrect conclusions.

So when you look at home value trends in a specific neighborhood, make sure to check out both the sample size (how many homes sold in a given time period) as well as which homes actually sold in each time period.