Why use median price instead of average price?

Outliers can distort the picture

List.my focuses on median price because property transactions are often uneven. A few unusually high or low deals can make a simple average look different from what most buyers and sellers are actually seeing in the market.

Median price is the middle recorded price after transactions are sorted from lowest to highest. If one premium bungalow, corner lot, or heavily renovated unit sells far above the rest, the median is less likely to be pulled away from the centre of the market.

For example, if five similar homes sold for RM500k, RM520k, RM540k, RM560k, and RM900k, the median is RM540k. The RM900k sale may be genuine, but it is not a good shortcut for understanding the typical transaction unless you know why it sold for so much more.

Why this matters in property data

Property is not like a shelf of identical products. Prices can move because of land size, floor area, renovation, view, tenure, frontage, lot position, urgency, and transaction timing. Even within the same project or road, two records can describe properties that are similar on paper but very different in value.

A simple average treats every price as part of one blended number. That can be useful in some types of analysis, but for quick market reading it often gives too much influence to unusual transactions. Median gives a steadier benchmark because it asks a simpler question: where is the middle of the recorded market?

How to use median price on List.my

Use median price to understand the typical recorded transaction level for an area, project, property type, or time period. It is most useful when the transaction group is reasonably similar, such as condos in the same project or terrace houses in the same neighbourhood.

Still compare carefully

Median price is a guide, not a valuation. It becomes less useful when there are very few transactions, when different property types are mixed together, or when the records include very different sizes and conditions.

If you need the basic definition first, read what is a property median price?. If you are judging one specific property, use the median as a starting point and then check the closest comparable transactions one by one.