Composite property price index forecasting with neural networks
ISSN: 0263-7472
Article publication date: 3 November 2023
Issue publication date: 3 June 2024
Abstract
Purpose
The Chinese housing market has gone through rapid growth during the past decade, and house price forecasting has evolved to be a significant issue that draws enormous attention from investors, policy makers and researchers. This study investigates neural networks for composite property price index forecasting from ten major Chinese cities for the period of July 2005–April 2021.
Design/methodology/approach
The goal is to build simple and accurate neural network models that contribute to pure technical forecasts of composite property prices. To facilitate the analysis, the authors consider different model settings across algorithms, delays, hidden neurons and data spitting ratios.
Findings
The authors arrive at a pretty simple neural network with six delays and three hidden neurons, which generates rather stable performance of average relative root mean square errors across the ten cities below 1% for the training, validation and testing phases.
Originality/value
Results here could be utilized on a standalone basis or combined with fundamental forecasts to help form perspectives of composite property price trends and conduct policy analysis.
Keywords
Citation
Xu, X. and Zhang, Y. (2024), "Composite property price index forecasting with neural networks", Property Management, Vol. 42 No. 3, pp. 388-411. https://doi.org/10.1108/PM-11-2022-0086
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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