Ames: Ames, Iowa housing data

In coursekata: Packages and Functions for 'CourseKata' Courses

Ames, Iowa housing data

Description

Data describing all residential home sales in Ames, Iowa from the years 2006–2010 as reported by the Ames City Assessor's Office and compiled by De Cock (2011). Ames is located about 30 miles north of Des Moines (the stats capitol) and is home to Iowa State University (the largest university in the state). Each row represents the latest sale of a home (one row per home in the dataset). Columns represent home features and sale prices (outcome). The original dataset includes a uniquely detailed (81 features per home) and comprehensive look at the housing market. The data included here are only a subset used for examples in CourseKata course material. See the references and data source for the full dataset.

Pedagogical Modifications

To simplify the dataset for instructional purposes, the data were filtered to include only single family homes, residential zoning, 1-2 story homes, homes with brick, cinder block, or concrete foundations, and average to excellent kitchen qualities. Further, the descriptive variables were reduced to the subset described in the format section.

Usage

Ames

Format

A data frame with 2930 observations on the following 80 variables:

YearBuilt

Year home was built (YYYY).

YearSold

Year of home sale (YYYY). Note: all home sales in this dataset occurred between 2006 - 2010. If a home was sold more than once between 2006 - 2010, only its latest sale is included in dataset.

Neighborhood

One of two neighborhoods in Ames county:

• College Creek (CollegeCreek), a neighborhood located adjacent to Iowa State University (the largest University in the state).

• Old Town (OldTown), a nationally designated historic district in Ames. The old neighborhood is located just north of the central business district.

HomeSizeR

Raw above-ground area of home, measured in square feet.

HomeSizeK

Above-ground area of home, measured in thousands of square feet.

LotSizeR

Raw total property lot size, measured in square feet.

LotSizeK

Total property lot size, in thousands of square feet.

Floors

Number of above-ground floors (1 story or 2 story).

BuildQuality

Assessor's rating of overall material and finish of the house.

• 10: Very Excellent

• 9: Excellent

• 8: Very Good

• 7: Good

• 6: Above Average

• 5: Average

• 4: Below Average

• 3: Fair

• 2: Poor

• 1: Very Poor

Foundation

Type of foundation (ground material underneath the house).

• Brick&Tile: Brick and Tile

• CinderBlock: Cinder Blocks

• PouredConcrete: Poured Concrete

HasCentralAir

Indicator if home contains central air conditioning (0 = No, 1 = Yes).

Bathrooms

Number of full above-ground bathrooms.

Bedrooms

Number of full above-ground bedrooms.

TotalRooms

Number of above-ground rooms in home, excluding bathrooms.

KitchenQuality

Assessor's rating of kitchen material quality.

• Excellent

• Good

• Average

HasFireplace

Indicator if home contains at least one fireplace (0 = No, 1 = Yes).

GarageType

Type of garage.

• Attached: includes attached, built-in, basement, and dual-type garages

• Detached: includes detached and carport garages

• None: home does not have a garage or carport

GarageCars

Number of cars that can fit in garage.

PriceR

Sale price of home, in raw USD ($)

PriceK

Sale price of home, in thousands of USD ($)

TinySet

(Ignore) Whether or not this row is in ames_tiny.csv

Source

https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/house-prices-advanced-regression-techniques/data

References

De Cock, Dean, (2011). Ames, Iowa: Alternative to the Boston Housing Data as an end of semester regression project, Journal of Statistics Education, 19(3). \Sexpr[results=rd]{tools:::Rd_expr_doi("10.1080/10691898.2011.11889627")}

coursekata documentation built on Aug. 12, 2025, 1:06 a.m.