What’s your system for long distance analysis?

[Account Closed]

Hey everyone!

I’m still in the education phase and working my way through @David Greene’s book Long Distance Real Estate Investing (great book by the way)!

I think buy and hold over long distance is a strategy that can work for me but Im wondering about how to set up the system for on going market analysis. In the book David talks about how keeping track of changes in the local market is key to knowing whether to stay in a region, or pull out etc.

How do you guys keep track of what’s going on in the markets you have investment properties in? How do you do this in a systematic way? How did you set up the system?

Thanks so much for helping me learn everyone!

[Jon Schwartz]

@Account Closed, that's a great question, and one I'm trying to find the answer to, too.

The problem I'm trying to solve is this: the hotter markets (Dallas, Orlando, Atlanta, etc.) are constantly being written about, but I'm interested in finding a less-discussed market that'll end up being just as profitable. Cap rates are so compressed in the hottest markets that a smaller market with a larger cap rate will produce the same return with less competition to get in.

I've done a lot of research on smaller markets with Census Bureau data, but it's not especially current.

So now I'm looking for and analyzing the most current data I can find that covers all or most US markets. I have three sources thus far:

1. Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey: This is published monthly, and it's where we get out current unemployment rate. More importantly, we can also use the numbers to see job growth (which is a more important metric). This covers almost every MSA in the country. Super valuable!
2. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey: This is also published monthly, but it lags by a few months. Still, it reports all the building permits issued in every MSA in the country. Really valuable for seeing where we're at risk of overdevelopment.
3. Zillow! I know everybody complains about Zestimates, but Zillow's data analytics in the aggregate are amazing. They collect everything here: https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. I'm still digging into these datasets, but I think there's a trove to uncover.

I'm passionate about this research, and I'm putting together a mailing list so I can share my research every couple of weeks. If you're interested in getting on the list, please send me a message. (If anybody's interested, lemme know!)

Also, once you've narrowed your search to a small handful of markets, find the local papers and subscribe to their email blasts. The small market that I'm active in is Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR. I get emails every week from the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal. I also listen to two local podcasts: "I am Northwest Arkansas" and the Democrat-Gazette's podcast. A few minutes of reading an a half-hour of listening a week, and I feel like a local!

All the best,

Jonathan