Why Nontraditional Data Points are More Effective

Commercial real estate investors and asset managers have been leveraging the same data sources for decades. With continued cap rate compression across markets and asset quality grades, there needs to be a way to win deals that will outperform in a highly competitive industry.
Savvy investors have been getting ahead of the curve by leveraging granular, nontraditional data for a much more effective method of analyzing markets and rent growth potential. Utilizing these nontraditional metrics in commercial real estate allows investors to explore new opportunities in submarkets that have been overlooked and make confident, data-driven decisions. 
Robust insights in a centralized location provide crucial, real-time information on market trends while allowing acquisitions and research teams to spend more time on tactical strategies and decision making. This is highly valuable for multifamily investors, owners and operators not only for the competitive advantage, but also because it streamlines the underwriting process and research efforts in different markets. 
Here are some of the ways nontraditional data points are more effective:
Hyper-localized insight Real estate is a hyper-localized industry and any insight on a granular level is not only more accurate, but also more predictive. Real-time metrics on employment, income and population growth when viewed on the zip code — or even block-level group — are much more telling than traditional data, which may only exist at the MSA level.
Census data is a good jumping off point for analyzing real estate investment opportunities, but it lacks the granularity and recency critical for research and planning. ……