Practical Regression Using Microsoft Excel

Last week I took the Appraisal Institutes course “Practical Regression Using Microsoft Excel”. This has been a hot topic in the appraisal industry and there were many appraisers attending the course, even from out of state. The instructor was John Urubek MAI and he was very knowledgeable and had many practical examples which made the course quite interesting. I found the course to be extremely useful. He had many examples of using regression on small data sets which appraisers deal with on a daily basis. It was also useful in learning more advanced features of Excel for both statistical analysis and graphing the results. Even though this course has been extremely popular with appraisers, it appears the Appraisal Institute is going to cancel the course. It seems it is concerned that the small data sets do not lend themselves towards using regression. I feel it is just one more tool in the appraiser’s tool box which could be useful in helping to come to a value opinion and I am glad I had a chance to take the course.