Final answer:
The median is the best measure of center for house prices, as it is less influenced by outliers compared to the mean, providing a more typical view of the housing market.
Step-by-step explanation:
Among the statistics used to measure the center of a data set, the median is often the best measure for data with outliers or extreme values, such as house prices. The mean, while commonly used and understood as the average, can be heavily influenced by outliers, leading to a distorted view of what is typical or central. For example, if one expensive house is priced significantly above the rest, like $2,500,000 compared to $280,000 and $315,000 for others, the mean would be elevated by this one value, misrepresenting the center. The median, on the other hand, is less sensitive to extreme values because it is the middle number of an ordered data set, providing a more accurate depiction of a typical house price. Mode is less commonly used as it only represents the most frequently occurring data point, which may not provide a clear picture of central tendency in a varied housing market.
Therefore, for house prices which can vary greatly and may include multimillion-dollar outliers alongside moderate-priced homes, the median gives a better reflection of the average person's experience with the housing market. This is confirmed in skewed distributions, where the median will not follow the direction of the skew as strongly as the mean.