Houses for sale. Each house listed on the multiple listing service (MLS) is assigned a sequential ID number. A recently hired real estate agent decided to examine the MLS numbers in a recent random sample of homes for sale by one real estate agency in nearby towns. To begin the analysis, the agent produces the following histogram of ID numbers.

a) What might account for the distribution seen in the histogram?

b) What advice might you give the analyst about the appropriateness of this display?