Office property price index forecasting using neural networks

Purpose: The Chinese housing market has witnessed rapid growth during the past decade and the significance of housing price forecasting has undoubtedly elevated, becoming an important issue to investors and policymakers. This study aims to examine neural networks (NNs) for office property price index forecasting from 10 major Chinese cities for July 2005–April 2021. Design/methodology/approach: The authors aim at building simple and accurate NNs to contribute to pure technical forecasts of the Chinese office property market. To facilitate the analysis, the authors explore different model settings over algorithms, delays, hidden neurons and data-spitting ratios. Findings: The authors reach a simple NN with three delays and three hidden neurons, which leads to stable performance of about 1.45% average relative root mean square error across the 10 cities for the training, validation and testing phases. Originality/value: The results could be used on a standalone basis or combined with fundamental forecasts to form perspectives of office property price trends and conduct policy analysis.