Predicting Apartment Prices in Jordan Using Ensemble Machine Learning Algorithms to Support Investment and Urban Planning Decisions

Abstract

The housing market is of great significance to the development and advancement of cities, but customary forms of property valuation are frequently biased, time-consuming, and not always effective. This paper focuses on the city of Irbid in Jordan, aiming to collect all the information on apartments and houses, predict the prices of properties, and clarify the key factors influencing the prices. Following the comprehensive cleaning process of the data and exploratory analysis, three ensemble machine learning models were trained and optimized to achieve accurate price predictions. The performance of all three models demonstrated excellent and consistent predictions, highlighting the efficiency of ensemble methods in predicting property prices. SHAP analysis indicated that the size of the house, the number of bedrooms, the number of lounges as well as the location are the most significant factors influencing the prices in Irbid. This reflects the functioning of the local market.