Exam 1 Scores Posted to WebCT

Exam 1 grades have been posted to WebCT (including descripive statistics). We will review Exam 1 in-class on Wednesday.

Exam 1 on Monday (yes, this Monday!)

Exam 1 this monday will have around 10 multiple choice style questions and 4 to 5 essay/short answer/calculation questions.

All you need to bring is your pencils, basic calculator, and Scan-tron (if you have one) to the exam. This is a no notes, closed book examination.

If you will be required to use a z or t table, I will provide copies of the tables that we have been using for class.

Richardson ISD-what's it worth?

Richardson ISD: what’s it worth? A comparison of residential sales prices by school district and municipal jurisdictions in a North Texas suburban region.

The realtors in the Richardson ISD school district proudly display property for-sale signs with RISD logos attached, indicating to potential buyers that a house location within RISD is a strong selling point for many buyers. RISD administration boasts many district awards over the years as one of the strongest performers in public education excellence in Texas and in the DFW metropolitan region. From the evidence suggested, residential properties for sale in Richardson ISD would seem to command a selling price premium over other comparable properties in adjacent neighborhoods located in different public school districts.

This study assumes that families with school-age children would prefer to live in a public school district with higher education quality as measured by state education rating standards and other public measures of school performance. Their preference for a better school district will be measurable in their home-purchasing decisions as a price premium paid for comparable housing and property amenities in one school district versus others nearby. Other categories of home buyers, such as “empty nesters” or “DINK’s” may not be as attracted to the value of a school district, and would not be willing to pay a premium for a property more typically demanded by these segments of the market (i.e., smaller homes, townhomes, condominiums, duplexes.)

Richardson ISD covers geographic areas of the City of Richardson, City of Garland, and the City of Dallas. However, each of these three municipalities is also served by at least one other local independent school district: Plano ISD, Garland ISD, and Dallas ISD, respectively. This study hypothesizes that residential home sales in each municipality served by RISD will command respectively higher prices than comparable homes in size, age and amenities located in the same city jurisdiction but in different ISD service areas. The study will also investigate whether there are any moderating relationships between ISD serving the home and other features of the home itself, such as size, age, and number of rooms. The house size, age and number of rooms are hypothesized to be proxies for the demographic segment of the housing market served (e.g., nuclear family with school age children vs. singles, couples, and retired.)

Confidence Interval Homework Answers

Ok, I can't write the confidence intervals the correct way, but here are some check figures for questions 1 and 2 only.

1. P($82,864.02 le U ge $84,902.64)=.90

2. P($78,916.24 le Xnew ge $88,850.42)=.90

What did you get for problems 3 and 4 (skip 5)? Please post your answer by commenting to this post.

Significance of Seller Paid Cost in Residential Real Estate

When selling residential property, there are several techniques used by the seller to make the property more attractive to potential buyers. One of those techniques is the seller offering to pay for some of the costs (including closing costs, repairs, etc.). From the sellers' point of view, it is commonly given that a) the final/net funds received from the sale and b) the least amount of time the house stays on the market, are what matter. From the financial aspect, allocating some funds for closing costs, repairs, etc. , which otherwise is expected to be lost in discount needed to arrive at final sales price, is a well known practice. The seller, after paying for some of the costs, expects to recover those costs at the end, or at least expects a positive correlation between the amount of paid costs vs. the final sales price. From the time aspect, it is expected that such practice will also result in the house being sold faster than otherwise. My hypothesis is that there is no significant correlation between the amount of seller paid costs (% of asking price) vs. the final sales price (% discount applied to asking price in arriving at the final sales price) or between the amount of seller paid costs (% of asking price) vs. the number of days a house stays on the market.

Conservation/Historical Districts and Heighborhood Groups

Oak Cliff was developed as an elite residential area in the late 1800's. For many years the area competed with Highland Park as the top enclave. Beginning in the 1960's the area experienced a rapid deterioration and became a symbol of urban blight. Recently, that has changed and the area is experiencing a tremendous amount of reinvestment in residential (and commercial) properties. There are many catalysts for this redevelopment. My hypothesis is that homes in the 26 various conservation/historic/neighborhood districts sell at a premium versus homes outside of officially designated areas. Furthermore, the older the neighborhood plat, the higher the sales price will be.

Alex Papavasiliou

New Urbanist Communities: Does it add value?

Recently there are some residential subdivisions are developed on new urbanism principals in a typical suburban locations in the DFW metroplex. Whether it is life style preference, change in demographics or scarcity of the land, more and more such communities are being proposed.
But eventually if these types of developments bring any premium to the home prices compared to the traditional housing, will decide if this trend is here to stay.

This study focuses on the comparison and analysis of the home prices in such sub division to the home prices for traditional homes in the surrounding area.