When talking about household wealth, the mean is a very poor way...

When talking about household wealth, the mean is a very poor way of measuring where the "typical" house fits in terms of wealth. This is because the incredibly wealthy individuals at the top of the distribution skew the mean significantly.

The median, or the mode where available, tells a much more accurate story about the "typical" household.

From the RBA:

"The difference between mean and median levels of household net worth reflects the uneven distribution of wealth across households. This unevenness (or skew) is due to a number of factors, including differences between households in their stage of life, labour market and education status, and income. One way to assess the degree of skewness is to compare medians from each quintile in the distribution. In 2006, median net worth of the households in the highest wealth quintile (the wealthiest one-fifth of households) was $1.35 million, which was around twice the median value of the second highest quintile, at $601,000, and around 10 times that of the second lowest quintile at $124,000 (Graph 26). The lowest quintile had net worth of $6,000 in 2006. In comparison, the distribution of income is less skewed. The median income of the highest income quintile was 1½ times that of the second highest quintile, and four times that of the second lowest income quintile. "

http://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2009/apr/2.html