All you need in order to determine where to put your next real estate
investment dollars are a good source of information about real estate in general
and your local market in particular. The Fannie Mae Foundation saw the need for
just such a data base, and they met that need.
It’s called the Data Place and it’s located online at
http://www.dataplace.org/.
If you’re already shaking your head because you know this site isn’t going to
help you with your local market research, local market analysis and probably
doesn’t even know your local market exists, think again. This site is user
friendly and interactive – a winning combination.
The site was developed as an informational database for anyone involved with
the housing industry, but with a particular slant toward researchers, developers
and policy makers.
All the local market information available through this site is public
information – it’s available to anyone from the urban planner for a major
metropolitan area to the rural real estate investor who just needs some current
local market information. It’s available if you just know where to look. Now you
no longer have to know where to get this information for your local market
analysis – you just have to remember the simple Internet address for Data Place.
It’s a combination of sources – from the Census to the Section 8 information,
all compiled by Fannie Mae and its partners – and invaluable for local market
analysis
So the site offers a good base of information for those working on local
market analysis and related information. Is that it?
Actually, that’s just the tip of the capabilities of this site with regard to
local market research. Do you want to know how two different locations stack up
against each other? There’s no need to spend hours gathering the statistical
data for this kind of local market research. You just plug in the information
you need and Data Place will spit out the information in graph form.
If you’re working on compiling information and you just can’t seem to get it
all done without being interrupted, you have the option of setting up a “My Data
Place” account so that you can save specific information until you’ve finished
with it.
Think this tool isn’t going to be good for your local market analysis unless
you’re researching a major urban area? Think again. Start at the “map” function
and you’ll see a bar to type in the name of a town, community, county, state or
region. If you type in “Gurdon,” Data Place immediately offers up “Arkasas” as a
potential location. Even with a dial up connection, you’ll have an incredible
array of information about Gurdon within a minute. The city of just more than
2,000 people is ranked “60th lowest in terms of home ownership” in the
state with 945 total households, a median household income of some $26,000 and
19% of the population falling in the poverty rate. How’s that for instant local
market data at your fingertips?