Celebrity Outliers Reports of the cost of a typical home depend on whether the mean or the median is reported. In early 2013, performer Beyoncé bought a $5.9 million home in Houston, Texas, for her mother, Tina Knowles. The 23,562 square foot mansion has eight bedrooms and 12 bathrooms! According to the real estate Web site trulia.com, the median home price in Houston around this time was $88,693 and the mean was $318,377. Beyoncé’s purchase was an outlier for Houston; such a purchase explains why the mean is much higher than the median for home prices in most cities. Extreme outlier purchases boost the mean, but do not affect the median.

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