Sales rate forecasting of single-detached houses using artificial neural network technique

Although the predicted number of sold units per month is one of the most necessary information to study the feasibility of detached-housing estate projects, traditional forecasting methods are limited. The research objective was to apply the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) technique to develop a sales rate forecasting model by compiling factors from an appropriate literature review. Then, 100 housing project data were collected from market research reports and the projects' websites and analyzed using the ANN technique. The results showed the ANN network with 16 input nodes from 10 factors: Selling price, Number of bathrooms, Number of bedrooms, Distance from the main road, Distance from the bus stop, Distance from the expressway, Distance from the metro station, Distance from the gas station, Distance from the shopping mall, and Project location zone. The acquired model had a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of ±6.296, and the slope and R2 values of the linear regression analysis between the forecasted rate and the actual rate were 0.620 and 0.571, respectively. The findings guide real estate developers and academia on the factors affecting the sales rate and provide a decision support model for investment and design of projects and confirm the potential of ANN in solving the problem with limited numbers of data.