About Me
Hello! My name is Corinne and I am about to graduate from Xavier University with majors in Finance and Business Analytics. I will be working for Fifth Third Bank in their Commercial and Credit Leadership Program following graduation. This means I will be moving to Chicago, IL from Cincinnati,OH. Although I grew up visiting the windy city, you never really look at apartments as a tourist. Therefore, beginning the apartment hunt was completely different then decided where to start shopping on Michigan Ave. I went to https://www.apartments.com/chicago-il/ when I began searching for the right apartment.
How to Start your Analysis (at least how I started)
More specifically, in my data analysis, I used https://myxavier-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal/nykazac_xavier_edu/ERh7wzvHpXRJptCXrHJ3BmcBiLWxosweLopa40_6HiHI4w?download=1 to do my analysis as this link is with the modified . I have identified 7 variables for my analysis including: property_name- the name of the apartment address- the Location of the apartment min_price- the minimum cost of living in one of their units max_price- the minimum cost of living in one of their units phone_number- the number of the apartment building features- the amenities that the apartment building offers type_of_rooms- the range of rooms available
To begin to really understand the data that I have generated first I put together these summary statistics:
This the basics. From here I will do much further analysis to try to find the best apartments.
What can I make of this data?
To more easily compare these apartments, I created some graphs below.
Above I know I am definitely looking for one to two bedrooms so I wanted to make sure all the apartments that I pulled had these options.
Here I wanted to see a word graph with the different features available. For instance, if most are pet friendly that is good, because I want a pet friendly place. Also, if there are not a lot of places with washer dryers I know I then need to narrow down my searches. As having in unit laundry is a must for me! Now, I know later on I’ll want to filter those out!
In this graph, I wanted to see the top five most expensive apartments, so I can take those out of my searches right away. I am a new college graduate, I do not have the funds to afford these luxuries yet!
Above, I wanted to look at the features in a word cloud to see what most apartments have to offer. I want an apartment that is similar to others and giving me the most.
| property_name | max_price |
|---|---|
| Xavier | 3430 |
| Oakwood Residence Chicago River North | 3800 |
| River West Lofts | 2600 |
| 5036 N Sheridan Rd | 1225 |
| Morningside South | 2800 |
| The Shelby | 2980 |
| The Duncan | 2660 |
| Century Tower | 3105 |
| Winthrop Terrace | 1250 |
| Gold Coast City Club Apartments | 2630 |
| 820 Michigan | 2699 |
| 40 East Oak | 1595 |
| Park Michigan - 1212 S Michigan Ave | 3155 |
| Maynard At Elaine Place | 3750 |
| 731 Plymouth | 2895 |
| 1100 N Dearborn | 1575 |
| The Van Buren | 3745 |
| The Bush Temple | 2550 |
| 1001 South State | 3811 |
| The Alfred | 2200 |
| Common Violet | 1165 |
| 528 Oakdale | 1739 |
| SoNu Digs | 1625 |
| Avenir | 3996 |
| Clark Street Apartments | 2901 |
| Lake and Wells | 2860 |
| 6031 N Paulina St | 1850 |
| Common Sable | 1207 |
| Cobbler Square Lofts | 3585 |
| The Bernardin | 3885 |
| Common Briar | 1400 |
| The Montrose | 3940 |
| The Pavilion | 3250 |
| The Synagogue | 2070 |
| Cloisters | 3525 |
| The Kent | 2450 |
| Gateway West Loop | 3682 |
Lastly, I wanted to see all apartments that on the maximum cost less than $4000 as I do not want to live in too expensive of a place. I already viewed the top 5 most expensive, but after viewing that I thought I might need to narrow it down even further.
When it comes to apartment searches, why look at just one sight?
I figured you can never trust just one site. Each apartments sight is programmed to give a person the perfect presentation of each apartment. However, I wanted to see what Twitter had to say about these Chicago apartments versus maybe come apartments in another city like Cincinnati where I am more familiar with how and where people live.
I took 200 tweets from each city and compared the tone of each tweet using the words that each person used in their tweet. To find tweets about apartments, I made sure the only qualification was that the tweet was from that city’s specific geo-code and that the tweet contained the word “apartment” in some way. Here is some of the analysis I ran:
In these graphs, I used two different word comparisons to look at the positive and negative words within the reviews for each city. As it can be seen, there are not any negative connotations with Chicago whereas, in Cincinnati there is more diverse language when talking about the apartments in the city.
Above I just wanted to look at the positive comments about both cities, again Chicago has significantly more positive reviews than Cincinnati.
Lastly, to wrap up all of the apartment research, I wanted to build a financial model.
This model shows what an idea of what my general expenses will be once I move. I took into account things such as: salary, things the government takes out of the paycheck, average utilities, parking, streaming services, eating, having an unlimited transportation pass in the city, and having a savings account.
In case you want to view or use I included a blank version: https://myxavier-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal/nykazac_xavier_edu/EbxSs7lfJEJFp6YVv-2Cnx4Bwf_HC84lozUS94LWnZ4zfQ?download=1.
From this budget, I know I want at least 100 dollars to spend throughout the week on miscellaneous items. Therefore, the maximum I can spend on rent is 3800 dollars.
| property_name | min_price | max_price | avg_price | type_of_rooms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xavier | 1799 | 3430 | 2614.5 | Studio - 2 Beds |
| River West Lofts | 1750 | 2600 | 2175.0 | Studio - 2 Beds |
| 5036 N Sheridan Rd | 900 | 1225 | 1062.5 | Studio - 1 Bed |
| Morningside South | 1750 | 2800 | 2275.0 | 1 Bed |
| The Shelby | 1634 | 2980 | 2307.0 | 1-2 Beds |
| The Duncan | 1626 | 2660 | 2143.0 | Studio - 1 Bed |
| Century Tower | 1690 | 3105 | 2397.5 | Studio - 2 Beds |
| Gold Coast City Club Apartments | 1745 | 2630 | 2187.5 | Studio - 2 Beds |
| 820 Michigan | 1395 | 2699 | 2047.0 | Studio - 2 Beds |
| Park Michigan - 1212 S Michigan Ave | 1470 | 3155 | 2312.5 | Studio - 2 Beds |
| Maynard At Elaine Place | 1675 | 3750 | 2712.5 | Studio - 3 Beds |
| 731 Plymouth | 1599 | 2895 | 2247.0 | 1-3 Beds |
| The Van Buren | 2465 | 3745 | 3105.0 | 1-2 Beds |
| The Bush Temple | 1820 | 2550 | 2185.0 | Studio - 1 Bed |
| The Alfred | 1940 | 2200 | 2070.0 | 1 Bed |
| Clark Street Apartments | 2519 | 2901 | 2710.0 | 1 Bed |
| Lake and Wells | 2005 | 2860 | 2432.5 | Studio - 1 Bed |
| 6031 N Paulina St | 1350 | 1850 | 1600.0 | 1-2 Beds |
| Cobbler Square Lofts | 1870 | 3585 | 2727.5 | Studio - 2 Beds |
| The Pavilion | 1140 | 3250 | 2195.0 | Studio - 4 Beds |
| The Synagogue | 1750 | 2070 | 1910.0 | 1 Bed |
| Cloisters | 2150 | 3525 | 2837.5 | 1-6 Beds |
| The Kent | 2200 | 2450 | 2325.0 | 1 Bed |
| Gateway West Loop | 1995 | 3682 | 2838.5 | Studio - 2 Beds |
I started by looking at each of the three variables ad filtering to all those below the price o f3800. I also included the types of rooms. I did this as the more expensive apartments are probably the largest type of room, lowest would be the smallest type of room and the average somewhere in between.
On top of that, I filtered out Studio Apartments as those are very unrealistic for me and my mental health, but the list I was left with about 24 options to choose from my original list of 100. Now, I can start being nit picky and narrow it down more based on features or location if I would like. I could also do more analysis to see where I can get the most bang for my buck!
| property_name | min_price | max_price | avg_price | type_of_rooms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maynard At Elaine Place | 1675 | 3750 | 2712.5 | Studio - 3 Beds |
| The Van Buren | 2465 | 3745 | 3105.0 | 1-2 Beds |
| Gateway West Loop | 1995 | 3682 | 2838.5 | Studio - 2 Beds |
| Cobbler Square Lofts | 1870 | 3585 | 2727.5 | Studio - 2 Beds |
| Cloisters | 2150 | 3525 | 2837.5 | 1-6 Beds |
Above I ran a table looking at the top five at the top of my budget and it seems like Cloisters would be my best option for getting the most space for the lowest amount. Whereas, if I do the same analysis with min_price and avg_price :
| property_name | min_price | max_price | avg_price | type_of_rooms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Triangle Square | 1676 | 5915 | 3795.5 | Studio - 3 Beds |
| Marlowe | 1993 | 5571 | 3782.0 | Studio - 2 Beds |
| One Superior Place | 2153 | 5379 | 3766.0 | Studio - 2 Beds |
| AMLI River North | 2127 | 5287 | 3707.0 | Studio - 3 Beds |
| Aberdeen East | 1996 | 5418 | 3707.0 | Studio - 2 Beds |
| property_name | min_price | max_price | avg_price | type_of_rooms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residences at 8 East Huron | 3055 | 6895 | 4975 | 1-3 Beds |
| Optima Signature | 2764 | 10096 | 6430 | Studio - 3 Beds |
| The Lofts at Gin Alley | 2760 | 12374 | 7567 | Studio - 3 Beds |
| Solstice on the Park | 2675 | 7589 | 5132 | 1-3 Beds |
| Clark Street Apartments | 2519 | 2901 | 2710 | 1 Bed |
In these instances, I found in the first based on the average price which is the first table, ALMI River North would give me the best offer. Whereas, Clark Street Apartments might be the best for in terms of the minimum price graph.