About this course: In this final course you will complete a Capstone Project using data analysis to recommend a method for improving profits for your company, Watershed Property Management, Inc. Watershed is responsible for managing thousands of residential rental properties throughout the United States. Your job is to persuade Watershed’s management team to pursue a new strategy for managing its properties that will increase their profits. To do this, you will: (1) Elicit information about important variables relevant to your analysis; (2) Draw upon your new MySQL database skills to extract relevant data from a real estate database; (3) Implement data analysis in Excel to identify the best opportunities for Watershed to increase revenue and maximize profits, while managing any new risks; (4) Create a Tableau dashboard to show Watershed executives the results of a sensitivity analysis; and (5) Articulate a significant and innovative business process change for Watershed based on your data analysis, that you will recommend to company executives. Airbnb, our Capstone’s official Sponsor, provided input on the project design. The top 10 Capstone completers each year will have the opportunity to present their work directly to senior data scientists at Airbnb live for feedback and discussion. "Note: Only learners who have passed the four previous courses in the specialization are eligible to take the Capstone."

Created by: Duke University

Taught by: Daniel Egger, Executive in Residence and Director, Center for Quantitative Modeling
Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University
Taught by: Jana Schaich Borg, Assistant Research Professor
Social Science Research Institute

Basic Info	Course 5 of 5 in the Excel to MySQL: Analytic Techniques for Business Specialization.
Commitment	8 weeks of study, 8-10 hours/week
Language	English
How To Pass	Pass all graded assignments to complete the course.
User Ratings	4.7 stars Average User Rating 4.7See what learners said

Syllabus

WEEK 1

Introduction

The goal for this week is to learn about the Capstone Project you are tasked with, acquire background about the business problem, and begin to outline the steps of your analysis.

5 videos, 14 readings

Graded: Your Three Elicitation Interviews

Graded: Elicitation

WEEK 2

Data Extraction and Visualization

The goal of this week is for you to extract the relevant data from the MySQL database you are given access to, and to look at it briefly in Tableau to get sense of what data you have.

1 video, 3 readings

Graded: Verify You Have Extracted the Correct Data

Graded: Make Sure You Understand What Your Data Mean

WEEK 3

Modeling

The goal of this week is for you to create a financial model using Excel to analyze the data you extracted from the database, and to start to predict short-term rents for some of Watershed's existing properties.

5 videos, 16 readings

Graded: First Best-Fit Line

Graded: Normalization

Graded: Applying Normalization to the Comparable Properties

Graded: Optimization Basics

Graded: Optimizing Watershed Rents

WEEK 4

Cash Flow and Profits

The goal for this week is for you to use your projections about the Watershed properties to estimate cash flows and profits Watershed would experience if it converted properties to short-term rentals.

3 videos, 11 readings

Graded: Alternative to Solver

Graded: Profitability

Graded: Cash Flow Risk and Total Cash Required

Graded: Sensitivity Analysis: Measuring Cutoffs at 40% Transaction Fee

WEEK 5

Data Dashboard

The goal of this week and next week is to build an analytical dashboard in Tableau using the data models and assumptions you have discovered in prior weeks.

6 videos, 3 readings

WEEK 6

Dashboard for Decision-makers

This week complete your dashboard and add design elements so the dashboard is ready for stakeholders (Watershed executives, for example) to use it to test your model's assumptions.

2 videos, 6 readings

Graded: Sensitivity Analysis

WEEK 7

Final Project

This week, design and give a presentation for Watershed executives with your business recommendations, and complete a white paper template. Evaluate 3 peer's dashboards, white papers and presentations.

2 videos, 7 readings

Graded: A Very Important Question!

Graded: Final Project Assignment Submission

FAQs

How It Works

Coursework

Each course is like an interactive textbook, featuring pre-recorded videos, quizzes and projects.

Help from Your Peers

Connect with thousands of other learners and debate ideas, discuss course material, and get help mastering concepts.

Certificates

Earn official recognition for your work, and share your success with friends, colleagues, and employers.

Creators

Duke University

Duke University has about 13,000 undergraduate and graduate students and a world-class faculty helping to expand the frontiers of knowledge. The university has a strong commitment to applying knowledge in service to society, both near its North Carolina campus and around the world.

Pricing

	Audit	Purchase Course
Access to course materials	Available	Available
Access to graded materials	Not available	Available
Receive a final grade	Not available	Available
Earn a shareable Course Certificate	Not available	Available

Ratings and Reviews

Rated 4.7 out of 5 of 65 ratings

It would have been nice to use more complex data analysis, as used in the second course of this specialization, in order to build the final model.

Great capstone course that successfully integrates all the concepts learning in the previous courses.

Wonderful course! The final project is so interesting! I could also communicate with my peers and learn from their work.

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Increasing Real Estate Management Profits: Harnessing Data Analytics

Increasing Real Estate Management Profits: Harnessing Data Analytics

Increasing Real Estate Management Profits: Harnessing Data Analytics