RE Data Sets - Can you help!?

Question

Hey BiggerPockets world! As a part of my MBA, I am taking a course on "Residential Property Management Technology". We have been tasked with searching for large data sets that contain historical property management information. It's a pretty broad ask, but any datasets showing some details over time around unit type, payments history, maintenance expenses, etc.. would be helpful!

The goal is to use the information in the classroom and work on building useful analytics from sources with different formats and levels of detail. It's important that any information shared has confidential tenant details omitted.

If anyone, in general, is interested in the results of our studies and tools developed during this course, let me know! I see BiggerPockets as a way of making the REI world a little bit smaller and would be happy to share anything of value that we are able to produce.

Josh

Amanda Roderick · Answer

Hi Josh - I am very interested in your project. I currently work for a real estate market feasibility firm that conducts research all across the country, primarily for multifamily projects (market rate, LIHTC, government subsidized, etc.). I am not clear, are you looking for data sources or just letting us know what you're up to? If you're looking for data, I can see if there is a way our company can help (Vogt Strategic Insights in Columbus, OH). Most of our day-to-day work revolves around current market conditions but our software may have the capability to show changes over time - let me know if you'd be interested in me finding out more.

Either way, I'm interested in your research and the outcome of your study! Please keep us posted.

Thanks!

Either way, I'm interested in your research and the outcome of your study! Please keep us posted.

Thanks!

Brian Robbins · Answer

@Josh Oden there is a real estate department at Texas A&M that tracks real estate data that may be helpful to you.  Also the big commercial real estate firms like Colliers etc... have research arms that track data for individual markets such as occupancy, avg rent, avg concessions, rent per sq ft, building permits, absorption rates, etc...  May be willing to work with you since you are a University based project.

Omar Khan · Answer

@Josh Oden These data sets are easily available from industry databases like REIS (mostly MF, but they have commercial data as well), CoStar, Yardi and Axiometrics (used by syndicators as well as real estate groups in BB and boutique i-banks). From my understanding, CoStar seems to have the largest sampling pool.

I know Real Capital Analytics is used in 2 of the Big 4 practices where I have friends. Best research is still connecting with local brokers/agents in each market. Big broker firms like CBRE and M&M also provide their own data. You can look up their reports but it's hard to get those data sets in an Excel format to run analytics. Talk to your local broker, they might be able to help you.

Tbh, the depth and quality of the data set varies by market and product type. This industry is ripe for disruption.

P.S. Underwriting to any database numbers can be deadly if not backed by local broker/agent knowledge.

Amanda Roderick · Answer

@Omar Khan - great, I replied. Let me know if you'd like more info. I know we do a fair amount of work in Texas already so I definitely think we can help.

@Josh Oden - to my knowledge, the database we use at work isn't designed to track changes over time. We analyze market feasibility only in the present moment. The primary focus of our research is generally rents and vacancies, paired with demographic data to assess demand and we don't typically track purchase price or repair/maintenance data. Also, we don't update market data unless we are hired to do so, which means that we're unlike some of the bigger companies that are constantly updating/tracking select markets. We're only in a market because we've been hired to be there. It doesn't sound like we're the right fit to help you but feel free to check out the website and if you'd like any more info, just let me know! I do hope to see some of your research on BP in the future!

Side note: I agree w/ Omar that there are challenges to this data - management companies are often hesitant to share info and sometimes even provide incorrect info, so be cautious and keep an eye out for anything that seems "off". Best of luck to you in this project!

Steve Babiak · Answer

Maybe these search queries could help:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anaahq.org+Survey+of+Operating+Income+%26+Expenses+In+Rental+Apartment+Communities

https://www.google.com/search?q=Survey+of+Operating+Income+%26+Expenses+In+Rental+Apartment+Communities

Josh Oden · Answer

@Patrice Penda - sure! I'll keep updating this thread as the study develops!

Patrice Penda · Answer

@Josh Oden I am interested in the results of your studies and the tools to make sense of the data you compile.

Josh Oden · Answer

@Omar Khan Thanks for the information and list industry databases. I will pass this information along to my professor and encourage him to dig into them further. Our immediate exercise is to build a few tools that can be used to look at operating data for property groups, but his academic research in the RE field is much broader than just the topic at hand. I think these sources can help with both!Good input on reaching out local brokers and using caution in regards to underwriting. At this point, the exercise is purely academic and the value is around building out tools that could be used later on.@Amanda Roderick Thank you for the reply! The immediate ask is for access to data sets that we can use to build out tools during this graduate course. As a part of that, my plan is to share anything valuable that we produce with the BP community. I wish I had a more clear "need", but at this point, we have been tasked with finding "large sets of RE operational data". I pulled quite a bit of info from data.gov, but I'm looking for more granular information if possible. It would be great to find a large database showing transactions for a set of properties (purchase price, rent collected, repair/maintenance, etc..) over time if possible.

Omar Khan · Answer

@Amanda Roderick Thanks for posting about your company. PM'g you.

Patrice Penda · Answer

Thanks Josh

RE Data Sets - Can you help!?

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