Where can I find the data that goes into assessing a market

[Atif F Shahnawaz]

Hi guys,

One of the things I've been trying to find the answer to is how to "read" a market. 

For example, I live in Austin, TX. Everyone tells me the real estate market here is "hot". That some 600+ people are moving in every day and that the central Texas economy is booming, etc etc... My question is where are people getting this data from? Are there government/state sites that document this information? If so, where are THEY getting their data from? How do I know the "experts" in the know aren't just echoing each other? 

To get even more granular, suppose I was interested in investing in any location, not just Austin. Just off the top of my head, things I would consider to be relevant in assessing the "health" of a community are demographics like the average age of people living there, percentage of the population who are home owners (as opposed to renters), average household income, recent economic growth of the region, the kind of jobs coming in to the region. 

I know none of the above will 100% predict any particular market's future behavior, and I'm not asking for a place to go that will give me 'predictions'. After all, unforseeable events, like a Zombie apocalypse or a plague of locusts, can upend a market and leave conventional wisdom by the wayside. I'm trying to figure out how best to get an objective, data-driven feel for where a market/community stands so I have something solid to wrap my mind around when I'm looking at a particular market and wondering if it's a good long-term (i.e. 5-10 years) real estate market. I don't want to just rely on folks in the area telling me that it's awesome and I should go ahead and dig in because humans in general are prone to affirmation biases. 

Atif