Sun
A median value is that value with half the values above it and half below.
In the 20 years before this one, 32,400 is the median number of homes, attached and detached, started every year by B.C. builders. (And 30,400 is the average number.) Accordingly . . .
If B.C. builders this year start 19,000 homes — and the B.C. Real Estate Association this week estimated they would — they would start 40 per cent fewer homes than the 20-year median start value (and 37.5 per cent fewer than the 20-year average value.)
The best thing that can be said about the 19,000 estimate is:
[1] 2009 would be one of those years in which starts fall below the median, and
[2] the last year of the previous decade was a worse year, with 16,300 homes started.
The worst thing that can be said is that if history were to repeat itself, the number of starts in 2010 will be lower than the number this year. They were 14,400 in 2000, a retreat of 1,990 starts from 1999. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., the national housing agency, provided the numbers for actual starts used in all this calculating.
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