In my very first post I mentioned that I use Excel all of time and in a variety of ways. One good example is when I began working at a new job after I graduated college and I needed to quickly find a new place of residence. I didn’t want to settle for just any old place. I wanted to know which location was best for me. What did I do? I turned to Excel to illustrate the pros and cons of different apartments I had chosen as candidates in order to help me decide which was the best.
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Along the top you can see the names of all the apartment complexes. Down the left hand side I listed all of the features I was interested in knowing and specifically asked about when I visited the apartments. In-between resides the gathered data. The majority of the wanted features required a simple yes or no answer. The apartment rating line is the average rating given to the apartment from an online apartment rating website. I computed the yearly cost just to get an idea of how much it would be and if I could afford it.
The final line is the most important, the scores for each apartment. How did I come up with those? Well if you look at the left hand side you might have noticed a bunch of hidden rows. That is where the magic happens. Each feature is given or subtracted points based on a factor of importance I created. The last column of the spreadsheet is the base line, my perfect living arrangement, and you can see the highest possible score is 12.5.
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This is what the rows look like unhidden. I gave each listed feature a rating as some of them were more important than others. I have my own microwave already so that was not as important as having a washer and dryer in the room. Price of rent was essential but having a covered parking lot was not.
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Here are the formulas I used for each feature:
Monthly Cost: =IF(B5<680,1.5,0)
Sq Feet = IF(B7>790,0.5,0)
Lease =IF(B8=6,1,0)
Pet Friendly =IF(B9="YES",1,0)
Dish-washer =IF(B10="YES",1,0)
Microwave =IF(B11="YES",0.5,0)
Washing Machine =IF(B12="YES",1.5,0)
Outdoor Pool =IF(B13="YES",1,0)
Indoor Pool =IF(B14="YES",0.5,0)
Covered Parking =IF(B15="YES",0.5,0)
Gated =IF(B16="YES",1,0)
Water =IF(B17="YES",0.5,0)
Private Entry =IF(B18="YES",1,0)
Deposit =IF(B19>200,-0.5,0)
Ap Fee =IF(B20>100,-0.5,0)
Distance to Work =IF(B21<12,0.5,0)
Online Rating =IF(B22>=0.5,0.5,0)
By using this Excel spreadsheet I no longer have to guess which apartment suits my needs, I now KNOW the best fit.