PROJECT DEMO: Top 5 Zip Codes

    Top Five Zip Codes is a housing market prediction model that uses seasonal ARIMA time-series analysis and GridsearchCV to recommend the top 5 zip codes for purchasing a single-family home in Westchester, New York.

    Interactive Dashboard:

    To see the dashboard in action, go to RealtyRabbit.

    Business Case

    Recommend top 5 zipcodes for client interested in buying a single-family home in Westchester County, NY within the next two years.

    Required Parameters (from Client)

    1. Timeframe: Purchase of new home would take place within the next two years
    2. Budget: Cost to buy not to exceed 800,000 USD maximum
    3. Location: Zip Code search radius restricted to Westchester County, New York

    Ideal Parameters (from Client)

    Success Criteria for Model

    1. Maximum ROI (highest forecasted home value increase for lowest upfront cost)
    2. Confidence Intervals
    3. Risk mitigation: financial stability of homeowners and homes based on historic data

    Objective

    Make forecast predictions for zip codes and their mean home values using Seasonal ARIMA time-series analysis.

    Commute Times

    Since commute time to Grand Central Station is part of the client’s required criteria, I first had to look up which towns/zip codes were on which train lines. Grand Central has 3 main lines on Metro North Railroad: Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven. The first question I was interested in answering was if the average home prices for the zip codes that fall under these geographic sections display any trends.

    Mean Values by Train Line

    Mean Values by Train Line Area Plot

    New Haven line

    New Haven Line Zip Code Timeseries

    NOTE

    Note that this does not include zip codes in Connecticut (which the New Haven line covers) since the client is only interested in towns in New York state.

    Harlem Line

    Harlem Line Zip Code Timeseries

    Hudson Line

    Hudson Line Zip Code Timeseries

    TOP FIVE ZIP CODES

    The top five I selected based on the above criteria were 10549, 10573, 10604, 10605, 10706:

    TOP FIVE RECOMMENDATIONS

    The top five results that fit the required criteria were 10549, 10573, 10604, 10605, 10706:

    10549

    timeseries 10549

    10573

    timeseries 10573

    10604

    timeseries 10604

    10605

    timeseries 10605

    10706

    timeseries 10706

    Top Five Zip Codes in Westchester County

    top five zipcodes timeseries

    FUTURE WORK

    My client was keen on accounting for public school districts, which upon initial inspection would have required a great deal of manual plug and play. However, if there is an API or some other way to scrape this data from the web, I would definitely incorporate school districts as an exogenous factor for the sake of making recommendations for a client. Someone might actually not prefer schools with a rating of 10 as these tend to be predominantly all-white. My client in particular was looking for decent school districts below the 10-mark because she wants her child to grow up in a more ethnically-diverse community. Being able to account for such preferences would be part of the future work of this project.

    Contact

    You can reach me at rukeine@gmail.com.

    License

    This project uses the following license: MIT License.

                           
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