Rent Estimates with Constraints over the Internet (System Description)

  by Slim Abdennadher, Thom Frühwirth and Peter Blenninger

  Computer Science Department, University of Munich
  Oettingenstr. 67, 80538 Munich, Germany
 

  Abstract

  We present an application utilizing Constraint Handling Rules (chr)
  offering rent advice. The city government of Munich publishes a
  booklet called the ``Mietspiegel'' (MS). The MS basically contains a
  verbal description of an expert system. It allows to calculate the
  estimated fair rent of a flat.  By hand, one may need a weekend to do
  so.  With our computerized version, ``The Munich Rent Advisor'', the
  user just fills in a form and the rent is calculated immediately.  We
  also extended the functionality and applicability of the MS so that
  the user need not answer all questions of the form. The key to
  computing with such imprecise and partial information was to use
  constraint technology.  We rely on the internet, and more specifically
  the World-Wide-Web (WWW), to provide this service to a broad
  user-group.