The average cost per square foot of a new condo was $1,189 in the first quarter compared with an average resale price of $859, a 38 per cent difference.
Seems like a weird way to frame that number. Sure, 1189/859 is 1.38, but that's the percentage resale prices would need to rise to match new unit build costs. The way it's framed sounds like they mean 859/1189 ("prices of resales are lower than the costs of new builds by x%"), which is .72, a 28% difference.
Math nerd alert.
Seriously, though, I would expect better from a financial news publication. AI slop, I'm guessing. (Edit: not the whole article, mind, I just mean that number framing and/or calculation looks, to me, like a typical AI error. The rest of the article is well written, imho.)
