11 Responses to “Beacon Hill Feb Sale Prices On the Rise” »»

1. Numbers Guy
   Comment by Numbers Guy | 03/14/09 at 9:43 am

   All you need to do is look at the negative skew and limited dataset to know that this is just noise. I am baffled as to how anyone can draw any conclusions YOY, with 1 month of data, from 1 neighborhood, with so few observations and such large standard deviation.

   Run a simple t-test on the means, and you will see they are not statistically significant.

2. Numbers Guy
   Comment by Numbers Guy | 03/14/09 at 10:12 am

   Whooops…did it again, I meant positive skew…

3. JohnF
   Comment by JohnF | 03/14/09 at 10:13 am

   Numbers Guy, Point well taken. I’ll be doing 1st Q stats comparing ‘09 to ‘08 in a couple of weeks. I know this is a lame excuse but today I’m lacking fresh ideas to blog about.

4. JohnF
   Comment by JohnF | 03/14/09 at 10:21 am

   Beacon Hill on a year to year comparison the numbers are down according to LINK.

5. Numbers Guy
   Comment by Numbers Guy | 03/14/09 at 1:09 pm

   JohnF,

   Looking forward to it.

   If you’re looking for ideas, why not compare the previous 3 months of data for each neighborhood?

   It doesn’t have to be quarter by quarter…you can do look at December 14 – March 14, 2008 vs 2009…40 or more observations for each 3-month period (60 observations total) should be enough data to get a better sense of the real trend. If you don’t have 40 observations, expand to 4 months, 5 months, etc.

   However, I would point out, to be fair you should declare the period up front without looking at the data first (otherwise, you are “fishing”)…

   Thanks.

6. Numbers Guy
   Comment by Numbers Guy | 03/14/09 at 1:10 pm

   Meant 80 observations total…sometimes I type too fast and never proofread…

7. John Ford
   Comment by John Ford | 03/14/09 at 2:35 pm

   Numbers Guy, Always open to new ideas. Fore-warn you might not like the resutls.

8. Bradley
   Comment by Bradley | 03/14/09 at 3:09 pm

   Why might he not like the results, John F? Could it be because they’ll reveal my predictions to be true?

9. Numbers Guy
   Comment by Numbers Guy | 03/14/09 at 6:57 pm

   I own already, bought a small condo, right for me and my small family, back in 2003. I don’t have a vested interest either way, other than stability.

   My wife and I have front-end and back-end ratios are less than 20%. I won’t say how much lower than 20% though.

   A home is a place to live, not an investment. It may be a lifestyle for some, but that’s their choice. So, I look forward to seeing the data, which will tell me how many people made “lifestyle” decisions this year, in this economy.

   And now you know my MO. I cringe when people make lifestyle decisions, which in this city, in this economy, are still happening at a rate exceeded only in NYC, LA, and SF.

10. Numbers Guy
    Comment by Numbers Guy | 03/14/09 at 7:10 pm

    Almost forgot…we should define what we’re testing before you produce the data. And there should be discussion about whether your proposal is the most relevant to your claim. What is your claim? Is it:

    Beacon Hill sales buck the trend for the rest of Boston -or-

    All of REAL Boston is up, Up, UP!!! and traffic jams on Bradley’s street are at all-time highs -or-

    Back Bay and Sout End are surviving amdist the rest of the Boston neighborhoods edging down.

    For me, data supports a theory, rather than looking at small datasets — ancedotal data to find a theory. If you can provide hypotheses and let the data guide you, that will be a blog worth reading.

    I took the time to actually make this comment because I think it is the only source of information that, despite being run by a broker, has a reasonable chance of being objective. If you make it objective and data-driven, people will read.

    If it is a big cheerleading session, they will still read but not want to work with you on the RE side.

11. JohnF
    Comment by JohnF | 03/14/09 at 11:38 pm

    Numbers Guy, thank you for taking the time to write your comments and I’ll follow-up on your ideas.

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