Project Title: Decision Support System for Real Estate Appraissal
Student: Muzhi Chen
Course: Bsc Hons Computer Science and Management

Abstract:
The purpose of this project is to design, develop and evaluate a decision support
system to aid real estate decision maker as well as individual property investor
during their decision process. This study examines several property appraisal
theories that can be used in real estate decision support system. Particular
emphasis is placed on the visualization of the property valuation and appraisal
process. For a long time, appraisers ignored the importance of the graphical
analysis of spatial information to decision-making, and instead focused on
various types of tables and graphs such as bar charts and pie chart. The
visualization of the process provides an important way of enabling decisionmakers
to make better decisions by conducting spatial analysis and displaying
spatial information. With the inclusion of Google map, the system provides the
spatial analysis capability to help user make unbiased judgments based on their
experience and use the market comparison approach to help improve the
accuracy by taking into account the heterogeneity of real estate.
Currently, there are two main approaches to spatial decision support. One
approach attempts to incorporate property valuation models into a Graphical
Information System, another approach is the adoption of DSS originally
developed for spatial decision making. However, these approaches may take a
long time to develop subject to the complexness of the system. Spreadsheet is
widely used as a tool for the development of many DSS products. With the help of
various add-ins and VBA programming, spatial functionality can be achieved
within excel which suggests an economic way to design a spatial decision
support system. The result solution is a spatial decision support system which
utilizes three most commonly used and widely available software including
Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Visual Basic Application and Google Maps API. The
system realized the basic functionality of a spatial decision support system and
by using Google map the system is able to provide more information than
traditional spatial decision support system (sDSS) which is key to real estate
appraisal. Additionally, by using excel as the developing environment, the system
inherits a friendly user interface and the flexibility for user to make necessary
amendments.