Problem: You’ve been renting an apartment since you got out of college and have decided that it’s time to buy a house. You want to spend at most $250,000 and are curious to know the approximate size of a house that would cost that amount. You look on a realty website and find several houses for sale but none for $250,000. You don’t want to spend more than $250,000 but the houses costing less are smaller than you’d like to have. You know that it may take some time to find the perfect house so you’re going to continue looking for something at that price. Still curious about what size house you would be able to get for $250,000, you gather the information from the website. The following is one of the General Steps in Building Math Models used to solve the problem. Which step is it?

Based on the data you collected and the linear regression you did, you yielded the equation y=102x-44284 You substitute 250,000 for y and solve for x to get x≈2885.14 is approximately equal to 2885.14. You decide you can buy a house that has approximately 2,885 square feet. This answers your problem statement, “What is the average size of a house costing $250,000?”
Step 5: Analyze the Data

Step 4: Gather the Appropriate Data

Step 6: Draw Reasonable Conclusions