Southern California Home Prices Did Not Set a New All-Time High Last Month

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From the LA Times today:

The Southern California median home price surged 8.2% in May from a year earlier, hitting a new all-time high of $530,000, according to a report Thursday from CoreLogic.

Aw, come on. I appreciate the sentiment, and I agree that home prices are starting to look a little frothy in certain places. But you really have to account for inflation if you want to declare something a “new all-time high.” The Times reports that the previous high was $505,000 in July 2007, which is equivalent to $610,000 today. We still have a ways to go before we set a new record.

What makes this worse is that the Times piece acknowledges this in the seventh paragraph. They know we haven’t set a new record, but they still say so in the headline, the lead, and the accompanying chart. That’s just not good reporting.