Google Docs Now Supports Pivot Tables. Crunching Data For Real Estate Appraisals Just Got Easier.

Real estate appraisers crunch a lot of numbers including analyzing market trends. It can be difficult to create good looking trend graphs if you have a large data set. That is where Google Docs can help.

Google Docs now supports pivot tables. Pivot tables allow you easily look at large sets of data from different angles with just a few clicks of the mouse.

A pivot table report is a dynamic table that lets you interpret data in different ways without ever having to enter a formula. Pivot table reports are particularly useful when you want to narrow down a large data set or analyze relationships between data points. In just a few clicks, you can summarize and analyze a large set of data through different categorizations and calculations. via Google Docs Help

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Getting Started With Pivot Tables

Step 1. Go to Docs.Google.com and start a new spreadsheet. Google Docs is free to use and you will need to have a Google username and password.

Select “Create New” then select “Spreadsheet”.

Step 2. Import your data.

You will need sales data to use in the pivot table. Most Multiple Listing Services allow real estate agents and appraisers to download sales data. Google Docs supports multiple files types including xls., csv., and txt. files. To import a file, select “File” then select “Import”.

Step 3. Create the pivot table.

Select all of the data by clicking the cell in the top left corner.

Then in the menu bar, select “Data” then “Pivot table report”.

A new spreadsheet will open with a blank pivot table.

Step 4. Set the rows and columns to analyze.

The report editor is on the right hand side. You can select what data you want for your rows and columns. Then select the information that you want in the pivot table as values.

That is it! Once your pivot table is populated, you can select the data and easily create a chart. You can also easily select new data to analyze in the pivot table.

Google Docs Pivot Table Example

Lets say you want to look at the average sales prices by city over the past 3 years. Note, your data might have different labels depending on your local MLS or data source.

Select City for the rows.

Select Year for the columns.

Select Sold Price for the values. You will want to summarize the data by Average. As of right now you can not summarize the data by the median function.

Then select the data in the Pivot Table.

Select “Insert Chart” to create a chart.

Here is the chart for the Average Sales Prices in 5 cities in Middle Georgia over the past 3 years.

The best part about Pivot tables is that you can easily drill down even further into the data.

For example, if you want to analyze sales price trends over the past 3 years by month AND year all you have to do is add Month to the column data.

Here is the chart for the Average Sales Prices in 5 cities in Middle Georgia over the past 3 years by Month.

The Bottom Line

Pivot tables are a great way to easily slice and dice data allowing you to look at data any way you want. You can analyze the number of sales by month, the number of sales by type (Bank Owned, Short Sale, etc.), average sales prices by zip code and easily create great looking charts. The only limit is your data.

Send me an email or comment below if you use Pivot tables to crunch your real estate data.

Check out Google Docs Help for more help with creating and editing pivot tables.

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Tagged as: Google Docs, Pivot Tables