Median prices tend to mask large disparities in the prices of the underlying individual sales, especially in the case of larger cities. For example,  San Francisco neighborhood median house prices range from $465,000 to $4,000,000, and there will be similar disparities in Oakland and San Jose. That being said, median prices can be useful to help show general appreciation trends, and to some degree, to compare home values between different areas. 2012 – mid 2013 was a period of rapid price appreciation just about everywhere on this map.

http://www.parascopesf.com/bay-area-home-value-update-third-quarter-2013-median-prices/