Question

Help! I don't get how to solve this!?

Answer 1

One way of doing this would be to find the price-per-square-foot of all five of the most recent sales. Then find the average of those five price-per-square-foot figures. Then multiply your result by the area of Marty's house (2,950 sq. ft.).

Answer 2

to get the price-per-square-foot I have to divide the price by the total square feet?

Answer 3

for example: 540,000/3,200? @mathmale

Answer 4

Yes, that's correct. Do this 5 times, once for each of the 5 houses.
Show your 5 results. Then find the mean / average of these results.

Answer 5

notice " price-per-square-foot"
means
\[ \frac{price}{square foot} \]
(the "per" means divide by )
that is a clue that you divide dollars by the number of square feet

Answer 6

so you need to find the price per square foot for each house
then find the average of those 5 numbers.

Answer 7

ok so the answers I got from dividing were:
171.25
154.90(rounded to the nearest tenth)
194.18 (rounded to the nearest tenth)
151.32(rounded to the nearest tenth)
206.43(rounded to the nearest tenth)

Answer 8

I then add all that up and divide by 5 right?

Answer 9

How would you go about averaging these five numbers?Yes: add them up and divide youor result by 5.

Answer 10

ok

Answer 11

the mean is 175.616 = 175.62 (rounded to the nearest tenth)

Answer 12

now find the price of her house square ft * price/square ft

Answer 13

The equation would be 2950 * 175.62?

Answer 14

yes, (but that is called an "expression" not an equation)

Answer 15

I get 518079?

Answer 16

Does that figure seem reasonable to you or not?

Answer 17

Not really because it's not one of my options in my answers

Answer 18

did I do something wrong?

Answer 19

You might want to include the $ sign with this result.

There's not a lot you can do to check your final answer other than to check your arithmetic.

You might want to do all the "price-per-square-foot" calculations over again; that wouldn't take long. Perhaps do this in order different from before. Average them.

Answer 20

If we divide the average of the prices by the average of the square feet
we get 175.10 for the average square ft
and using that value we get an answer that is listed on your choices.

Answer 21

*175.10 for the average price per square ft

Answer 22

I wonder what I did wrong to get 175.62?

Answer 23

you did the calculation correctly. But there is a (subtle) difference between first finding the average price per sq ft and averaging those
as opposed to divide the average price by the average square ft

I guess they want you do use the 2nd approach, but it's not obvious why. (Hopefully they have a lesson that explains how to do these problems)

Answer 24

Honestly I don't know. I had done the first steps before but got lost in the final expression

Answer 25

Thank you for your help

Answer 26

your numbers are correct. Using Matlab
p =

548000 480200 650500 488000 578000

>> f=[ 3200 3100 3350 3225 2800]
f =

3200 3100 3350 3225 2800

>> ap= p./f
ap =

171.25 154.90 194.18 151.32 206.43

>> apm= mean(ap)
apm = 175.62
>> apm*2950

Answer 27

but if we do it the other way
2950*mean(p)/mean(f)
ans = 516546.4
we get
516,500 (to the nearest hundred)

Answer 28

fyi, the average of the prices is 548940
and the average of the sq ft is 3135