COMM5000 Data Literacy Term 3, 2025

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COMM5000 Data Literacy

Housing Market Dynamics & Affordability:

Connecting Housing to a Sustainable Future

Milestone 1 Information

Term 3, 2025

Milestone1: Preliminary Insight Development

Report details

Week 4, Friday 5PM

15%

Submission: Two files (Report and accompanying Excel work file)

This is individual work. Reports will be checked for plagiarism.

1000-1500 words (not including tables, graphs, and references)

Via Moodle course site

Description of Milestone 1

For this first Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA), take the role of a Housing Market Analyst tasked with uncovering changing patterns and trends in the Australian real estate market. Your reports will be used by various stakeholders, including policymakers (with a focus on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)), investors, finance professionals, and urban planners, for future planning and decisions.

Milestone 1 questions are put in a specific scenario context to address the following critical areas:

✔ Explore price stability and volatility between locations: what do these patterns suggest for long-term housing strategies?

✔ Investigate how house size, location, or other features play a role in value estimation: whose interests do these trends affect?

✔ Detect properties whose prices deviate sharply from expected norms: how do these shape perceptions of affordability or market health?

Your findings should interpret both patterns and their implications for investment policy, affordability solutions, and sustainable urban planning.

Question 1: Exploring Price Stability and Regional Trends

Stakeholder Concern: A key concern for policymakers and investors is whether housing prices remain consistent across different states or if some regions experience more significant fluctuations than others. While some argue that property values vary widely due to economic differences, job markets, and local demand, others believe that the housing market follows a more stable national trend.

Understanding these price patterns is essential for designing housing affordability strategies and assessing investment risks. This insight will help stakeholders identify where property investments are more secure and where affordability interventions may be necessary.

Your Task:

• Assess price variability first across states using summary statistics (mean, median, IQR, standard deviation).

• Next, zoom into suburbs within those states to determine if any exhibit unusually high or low-price variability relative to their state average.

• Explain the differences found and their implications for targeted housing affordability policies or investment risk assessments.

• Use box plots or histograms separately by state and selected suburbs to illustrate these differences.

Question 2: Relationship Between House Size & Price

Stakeholder Focus: Policymakers, Investors, and Urban Planners (SDG/Policy scenario)

Stakeholder Concern: There is a common belief that larger homes always command higher prices, but this may not hold in all markets. Property value is influenced by various factors, including location, demand, and the availability of land, which may sometimes outweigh the impact of size.

Developers, investors, and buyers need to understand how much house size contributes to price and whether prioritising square footage is an effective strategy. Your analysis will explore the relationship between house size and market price, providing insight into whether larger homes consistently lead to higher valuations or if other factors play a more significant role.

Your Task:

• Explore which property features most powerfully influence price (size, age, location, etc): pick variables and visualisations that make sense for your sample.

• Suggest how different stakeholders might interpret your findings: does size matter everywhere, or do the data highlight exceptions important to investment or planning?

Question 3: Identifying Outliers in Housing Prices

Stakeholder Concern: Extreme property prices can undermine reliable market assessments and distort efforts to monitor affordability or sustainability.

Think about whether these outliers are concentrated by region or property type. Irregular pricing in the housing market can distort affordability assessments and mislead buyers, investors, and policymakers. Some properties may be priced significantly above or below typical market values due to luxury features, distressed sales, or unusual market conditions.

Identifying these outliers is essential for refining overall market analysis and ensuring that decision-makers have an accurate understanding of pricing trends. Your role is to determine which properties deviate significantly from the general price range and assess whether these extreme values impact overall market assessments. This will provide insights into whether price distortions are common in specific regions or property types.

Your Task:

• Use appropriate statistical methods to flag outliers in your sample.

• Discuss what these anomalies reveal about local markets (“hot spots”), and whether they should be excluded, separately analysed, or targeted by policy.

• Relate your conclusion to how SDG targets for affordability and inclusion might be evaluated in practice

Milestone 1 Report Guide: Writing Your Analysis

Your Role

You are a Housing Market Analyst. Your job is to explore the housing market data and produce a clear, practical report that answers key questions for three stakeholder groups:

• Policymakers are concerned with price stability and regional affordability

• Real estate investors are seeking to understand value drivers and market risks

• Finance professionals are worried about extreme price outliers that could affect mortgage risks

How to Structure Your Report

Your report should respond directly to these stakeholder concerns and analysis tasks. This means your report sections follow the main questions and your analysis steps:

1. Executive Summary (Max 150 words)

Write a concise summary of your key findings, including insights into housing price variation, the relationship between house size and price, the impact of outliers on market views, and differences in building types. Identify 1 to 2 key insights that stakeholders would find most valuable for informed decision-making.

2. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) — Four Questions (Each 200–250 words)

For each question, your response must include:

• Numerical Summary

Summarize key statistics tied to the scenario. For example:

- For Question 1 (stakeholders: policymakers, investors), calculate and compare price distributions (central tendency and spread) by state and suburb.

- For Question 2 (developers, investors), analyse correlations within relevant locations.

- For Question 3 (finance, government), identify and quantify extreme prices and their geographic concentrations.

• Data Visualization

Include one clear, relevant chart per question (box plot, scatter plot, histogram) that relates directly to your summary statistics and stakeholder concerns. Provide a short caption explaining what the chart shows. For example:

- A box plot showing price variability across states for Question 1,

- A scatter plot of house size vs. price broken down by suburb for Question 2, etc.

• Interpretation and Insights

Write brief but insightful explanations connecting your numbers and charts back to the stakeholders’ concerns. For example:

- Explain why price stability varies regionally and how that affects housing affordability policies.

- Discuss if and why larger houses command higher prices in some suburbs but not others.

- Reflect on how outliers complicate mortgage risk assessment and affordability measures.

3. Key Insights and Business Implications (Max 250 words)

- Summarise the most critical insights from the three stakeholder-focused questions combined.

- Explain why these insights are critical for policymakers, investors, or planners.

- Highlight one clear, data-backed recommendation—e.g., where to prioritise affordable housing development or adjust investment focus.

Writing Tips

- Keep your answers clear and directly linked to the stakeholder’s scenario and analysis task.

- Use section headings matching the question topics to keep a logical flow.

- Be concise and avoid unnecessary statistical jargon or long general explanations.

- Integrate charts and tables in your discussion; they are part of your evidence, not just extras.

- Write in a professional, neutral tone suited for business and policy readers.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

- Over-description: Focus on what the data says, not detailed explanations of methods.

- Missing relevance: Always answer “Why does this matter to stakeholders?”

- Disorganised responses: Follow the Numerical Summary → Visualisation → Interpretation order per question.

- Unexplained visuals: Every chart or table needs a clear, brief explanation.

- Too long: Stay within the 1,500-word limit for readability and fairness.

This guide ensures your report is well-organized, insightful, and clearly connected to the practical problems faced by your stakeholder groups, helping you deliver data-driven solutions that matter.

Submission Requirements

Submit two separate files for Milestone 1:

1. Written Report (PDF or Word document) with your analysis findings, following the report structure guide.

2. Excel Work File containing your data exploration, analysis, and any calculations or visualisations you performed. This file must include:

- The assigned sample dataset you worked on (or your filtered sample, if applicable)

- All tables, charts, and formulas used to produce your report findings

- Clearly labelled worksheets or tabs matching your report sections

Ensure the Excel file is well-organised and self-explanatory so markers can easily verify your data work and reproduce your results.