Don’t rely on averages in home-value matters...

Don’t rely on averages in home-value matters

The Daily Pilot ran an article May 18 about the local housing

market, “Steady going for housing market.” The Pilot quoted figures

from DataQuick Information Systems.

It was reported that the Northern Balboa Peninsula, wherever that

might be, increased 48.3% for April 2005 in comparison to the same

month of 2004. It further reported that prices in the Balboa Village

Area dipped 26.4% to an average value of $1,075,000 million for the

same period.

Television and newspapers are filled with stories of the real

estate “bubble.” When is it going to burst? This gives the impression

that it has already happened, but in only one section of our city.

It is improper to value real estate using averages.

Using a small sampling of data can create misleading results. For

example, on my street, a neighbor will be 100 years old next month.

Two doors away is 6-year-old. With a sample group of two, one might

assume the average age on the street is 53. If you add in the little

6-year-old’s twin brother, the average comes to 37 years.

DataQuick based its report on eight sales in the Balboa Village.

On the other hand, the Newport Beach Board of Realtors reported nine

sales for April 2005 in the same area. The realtors reported a dollar

volume of slightly over $18 million. This would reflect an average of

more than $2 million per home.

I don’t question the data from either DataQuick or the Board of

Realtors. But an almost $1 million difference in the reported sales

amount points out the danger of relying on averages.

HOWARD WELLS

Balboa

We need an intelligent theory to explain it

Should science classes offer “intelligent design” along with

Darwin’s theory of evolution?

I know of no skeleton evidence available to document that one

species evolved into another, which of course is why it remains a

theory instead of fact.

Sure, a species can adapt and make changes within that specific

species to survive, but that is a far cry from what students are

taught in science classrooms today.

Instead, they are asked to believe that by a freak accident life

was created in one small cell and that the single cell then evolved

into trillions upon trillions of different types of animals, plants

and minerals we see around us today.

Amazingly, evolutionists think that is far more logical than

believing that each species was originally created by intelligent

design.

Hey, if the flawed theory of evolution is the only one taught in

science classrooms today, certainly it is fair that intelligent

design be given equal time.

JEAN OLSON

Newport Beach