Science Fair Proposal

1. What is your topic?

My topic is real estate.

2. What is the driving problem behind your experiment and the quote by an expert to support that problem? (Expert citation must be MLA format.)

My problem is a low personal income makes foreclosure happen at an accelerated rate.

"One other problem could threaten homeowners, and it’s a big one, Mowle said. If the federal government fails to resolve the national debt crisis, it’s possible mortgage rates could spike as a result, leading to more foreclosures. Or, if the federal government misses payments to Social Security recipients, military retirees or federal government contractors, foreclosures could jump, he said."
MLA:

Laden, Rich. "Midyear Review: Real Estate Market Still Faces Challenges." Colorado Springs Gazette, CO. N.p., 25 July 2011. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. <http://www.gazette.com/articles/key-121893-region-market.html>.

3. What is your hypothesis? (Must be in If-Then form.)

If the closer a household's personal/discretionary income is closer to the poverty line, then the homeowner is more likely to default on their loan, within a 5 to 10 year period.

4. Write a paragraph summary of how you will perform the experiment.  Include the tools you plan on using.

for this experiment I plan on reviewing multiple case studies on homes that were foreclosed upon. The case studies will be obtained through the National Realtor's Association (NAR) database. To measure the time from the purchase to foreclosure, I will be using local and state records that are available to the public. Finally to view the personal/discretionary income of a household, the U.S Census Bureau will be the tool to use. After all of the necessary data is gathered, the numerical data will be correlated to see if there is a relation or not between personal/discretionary income and the rate of foreclosure.   

5. Select one of the following Project Categories for your experiment:
Mathematics & Computer Science