Nonsensical data

Jane Bowron writes:

While this might sound mean spirited, the facts of who owns what, and how much they own, in this country had become increasingly apparent.

Research provided by Ramifier last year found that a 27.1 per cent of us own one home, 13.2 per cent own two homes, 10.7 per cent four to six, and 9.4 per cent more than 20 homes.

Whaaat? Yes, that’s right – more than 20 homes.

Common sense tells you this so called fact is nonsense. If 10% of New Zealanders owned 20 or more homes each, then there would be twice as many houses as New Zealanders!

There are around two million households in NZ. Let’s use Bowron’s so called facts and do some basic maths.

• 27% x 1 x 2 mil = 540,000
• 13% x 2 x 2 mil = 520,000
• 11% x 4 x 2 mil = 880,000
• 9% x 20 x 2 mil = 3,600,000
• Total = 5.54 million homes

I know her column is an opinion column but something asserted as a fact should be fact checked.

If one looks at the data she links to, it is something quite different. It does not say 10% of us own more than 20 homes. It says 10% of homes are owned by someone who has 20 or more homes.