STATS1900 Business Statistics
Minor Assignment
Date Due: Week 4, Friday 11th 2 pm
Worth: 10%
A real estate agency is conducting an evaluation of all the houses sold in its region over a 3 month period. The main aim of this assignment is to produce a report summarising the characteristics of the data. The agency needs a report that studies the house prices, whether the houses are custom built and the location of the sold houses.
The data collected is contained in a file called ‘Houses.xls’ which has been placed in Moodle. Make sure you check with your lab tutor how to obtain this data. For this assignment, you need to use Excel to conduct the statistical analyses.
The columns of the file contain the following information. Note that the final variable ‘square metres’ will be used in the next assignment.
Column Name Description
C1 Price Selling price ($)
C2 Location House location (0 = small residential area; 1 = large residential area)
C3 Custom Customised house (0 = not customised; 1 = customised)
C4 Square Metres Square metres of living space
Before you begin any analysis you must take a random sample of 80 houses from the 117 provided in the data set. To do this, you use the random sample already made for you in the following file that was sent to your email “random sample find your name.xls”
Or you can do it yourself using the Random Sample Generator available on Moodle (Random Sampler Generator-sum_15). Make sure you check with your tutor how to obtain a random sample of 80 houses using this generator. Your answers to the assignment tasks below are based on your sample of 80 houses. Make sure you keep a safe copy of your sample, since you cannot use the Random Sample Generator to reproduce the first sample.
The main aim of this assignment is to investigate the house prices in this region and some of the variables that may influence the house prices. Each of the tasks below will guide you through various descriptive statistical analyses that will assist you to formulate a conclusion about the main aim. Your responses to these tasks should be represented in a well written manner with appropriate statistical analyses. Appropriate computer output should be incorporated within the body of each response.

Assignment Tasks:
NB: Each graph & table should have a heading and each axis should have a label.
Task 1: Basic Descriptive Statistics and Graphs [20 marks]
For the variable Price, obtain some basic descriptive statistics as well as a histogram and a boxplot. Include the output from the plots and descriptive statistics in your assignment. Briefly describe the shape, location and spread of the distribution of House Prices with appropriate linking to the descriptive statistics. That is, state which central measure and measure of spread would be best to use to describe the distribution and the reason(s) why. Make comments on the presence of any outliers (for example, what effect would they have on the summary statistics).
Task 2: Side-by-Side Boxplots [10 marks]
Produce a side-by-side boxplot that visually depicts the relationship between House Price and Custom. The boxplots should show the distribution of house prices for both customised and non-customised houses. Include the output in your assignment. Describe what is shown by the boxplots in terms of the shape, spread and location of each distribution as well as the comparison of them both.
Task 3: Pivot Tables: [10 marks]
Construct a pivot table to compare the Custom with the Location. Place Custom in the rows and Location in the columns and a count of houses in the body of the table.
Obtain a second pivot table by converting the frequencies in each column into relative frequencies in each column (right click on any number in the table, then choose Show Values as % of column totals).
Include both tables in your assignment. You need to compare the percentage of the customised and non-customised houses within the two locations. Discuss whether the proportions of customised houses differ within the two locations by referring to the two pivot tables.
Task 4: Conclusion [2 marks]
From the tasks above, you should have some idea of the variables in the houses data set and how some of them relate to others. In this section you should write a short paragraph summarising your main findings.
Marks awarded for overall flow and structure of discussions; technical language; grammar and spelling:
[3 marks]