Problem Description for Predicting Boston Housing Prices.

The data file contains information collected by the US Bureau of the Census concerning housing in the area of Boston, Massachusetts. The dataset includes information on 506 census housing tracts in the Boston area. The goal is to predict the median house price in new tracts based on information such as crime rate, pollution, and the number of rooms. The dataset contains 12 predictors, and the response is the median house price (MEDV). The below table describes each of the predictors and the response.

TABLE: DESCRIPTION OF VARIABLES FOR BOSTON HOUSING EXAMPLE CRIM Per capita crime rate by town ZN Proportion of residential land zoned for lots over 25,000 ft2 INDUS Proportion of nonretail business acres per town CHAS Charles River dummy variable (= 1 if tract bounds river; = 0 otherwise) NOX Nitric oxide concentration (parts per 10 million) RM Average number of rooms per dwelling AGE Proportion of owner-occupied units built prior to 1940 DIS Weighted distances to five Boston employment centers RAD Index of accessibility to radial highways TAX Full-value property-tax rate per $10,000 PTRATIO Pupil/teacher ratio by town LSTAT Percentage lower status of the population MEDV Median value of owner-occupied homes in $1000s