Median Sales Price vs Appreciation - how they correlate?

[Marcus Auerbach]

"In god we trust, all others bring data" - a favorite of my old boss. I study real estate data on a regular basis and publish a monthly video about what I see in my local market. And it's important to me that I make accurate statements about facts (and they better not be alternative facts..) answering the most common questions. How is the market? is the obvious one, but what people always want to hear about a lot is appreciation - how much did my home go up in value? Of course nobody can say accurately without seeing the home and putting a CMA together, but people are looking for a general statement.

And here is the issue I have with that: the hard data I can pull out of MLS is Median Sales Price and Median List Price - the correlation of both to each other is interesting in it self, but I would say while they are good indicator they are not exactly the same as appreciation. My point is, just because more houses got sold at a slightly higher price point, that does not necessarily mean that a particular house has gone up in value at the same rate.

I think Median Sales Price is a good indicator and gives you a sense for what appreciation might be, but in your opinion would you say they are close enough to say it's the same?