# Methodology — Small-estate procedures vs median home values

**Package date:** 2026-09-17 (America/New_York)

## Question
Which simplified estate procedures exist, what property can they cover, and — only when a procedure has a meaningful **real-property** dollar limit — how does ACS median owner-occupied home value compare with that limit?

## What this is / is not
- **Is:** A research layer on top of Family Estate Guide's small-estate affidavit reference and ACS housing values.
- **Is not:** Legal advice, eligibility determination, or a claim that a median home is a decedent's house value.
- Personal-property-only procedures **do not** get a home-value ratio (by design).

## Data
1. **Legal inventory (starting point):** structured extract from live `/small-estate-affidavit/` (WP page 950), plus curated multi-procedure rows for **California** and **Florida** from court self-help / statutes.
2. **Housing values:** Census ACS 2024 5-year `B25077_001E` (median value of owner-occupied housing units) by state, with MOE `B25077_001M`, via Census API (key server-side only).

## Home comparison rule
Compute `median_home_value / real_property_limit` **only** if `home_comparison_eligible=yes`.
Eligible requires a documented numeric real-property (or summary-admin estate) limit that can include real property under the procedure's scope notes.
Otherwise show the rule and mark comparison `n/a`.

## Confidence
- **high:** CA/FL curated procedures with primary statute/court sources.
- **medium/low:** National rows still largely derived from the FEG affidavit table text; **need statute-by-statute verification** before treating ratios as citable national findings.

## Limitations
- ACS medians describe the occupied-home market, not decedent-owned homes or equity after mortgages.
- Gross-value legal tests are not the same as equity.
- Multiple procedures per state are expected; one conflated "threshold" is often wrong (see California).