Excel for Surveyors

Citation

Williams, N. (2001), "Excel for Surveyors", Journal of Property Investment & Finance, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 330-331. https://doi.org/10.1108/jpif.2001.19.3.330.1

This book focuses on the use of Microsoft Excel by surveyors. In particular it concentrates on the application of Excel to property valuation. The book is intended for beginners and more experienced Excel users alike, and while it assumes the reader has valuation knowledge, it does not set out or recommend any particular formats or methods for making property valuations. Somewhat unusually for books of this kind, it is intended for both PC and Macintosh users.

Novice Excel users are provided with a clear introduction and clear explanations of the basic Excel functions. The book makes good use of step‐by‐step examples and uses a bold typeface to show relevant Excel commands. Screenshots are also used throughout the book. The screenshots are of Excel on a Macintosh computer and, while the differences between Excel on a Macintosh and Excel on a PC are small, a reader who is a novice Excel user using a PC, might question why the screen shots are not quite like their own machine.

Following the introduction to Excel in chapter two, chapters three and four consider the use of formulae and formatting cells. Chapter five considers the financial functions that are built into Excel. The authors suggest that they are of little interest to surveyors in this country, being designed primarily for the US investment market where methods, characteristics and terminology are different from the UK system. Instead, the authors concentrate on the construction of formulae which are more appropriate for the UK system. The first set of formulae constructed is a set of valuation tables. Valuation formulae are provided in a format that can be typed directly into Excel. For the novice Excel user the creation of valuation tables is an ideal first task to learn basic Excel skills.

Chapter seven deals with standard valuations (fully‐let properties, term and reversion, the layer method) and again clear screenshots and explanations of Excel aspects are provided. Before dealing with discounted cash flow (DCF) calculations in chapter nine, chapter eight provides some useful tools to assist the Excel user in solving problems they may have inadvertently created. For example, the auditing function which allows the user to see how a particular worksheet has been constructed.

While this chapter initially appears to be in a less than ideal place in terms of the book’s overall structure, being positioned between the chapters dealing with traditional and DCF methods, in fact, the authors have wisely provided the reader with problem solving tools before discussing the more complex DCF formulae. Formulae for residual valuations and profits valuations are also considered.

The final sections of the book provide the reader with a useful arsenal of tools to maximise the use of Excel, including: creating charts; printing Excel worksheets; managing data; and creating pivot tables which summarise large amounts of data. Other tools such as regression analysis, scenario testing, macros, and programming are also included and thus the more advanced Excel user is not neglected.

Overall, this is a useful text not only as a beginner’s guide for novice Excel users within the profession, but also for those surveyors who are more Excel aware and wish to make more use of this potentially powerful tool. The surveyor who is a novice Excel user can read the book from cover to cover and work through the examples therein. Alternatively, the practitioner with more Excel experience will find the book a useful reference text to dip into as required. Surveying students will undoubtedly also find this a useful text. In conclusion, the authors have succeeded in creating a clear, useable and informative text which will assist many surveyors in getting more out of Excel in their professional lives.