September 2005  

The EconData.Net Monthly Newsletter

SITE OF THE MONTH:  Dataplace

Easy to Use and Encyclopedic Data, Maps and Charts for Housing & Community Development

September's Site of the Month is DataPlace, an innovative initiative under the Fannie Mae Foundation's Knowledgeplex umbrella. DataPlace aims to provide housing and community development professionals with a convenient one-stop shop for relevant data, and offers some sophisticated, but easy-to-use tools for generating maps, tables and charts. The site integrates data from a range of sources, including the Decennial Census, home mortgage disclosure data, Section 8 administrative records, and the Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) data file. You'll find some very powerful tools for creating community profiles, ranking places (states, metropolitan areas, counties, cities, census tracts) according to various data, and mapping many of these variables, down to the census tract level. A key indicators page lets you quickly summarize important characteristics for a geographic area and then add other areas for comparison. DataPlace offers a blog and community forum to discuss data and data tools of interest. (Full disclosure: EconData.Net is provides Housing Data News on DataPlace.)  There are so many features and so much data at this site that you simply have to take the tour--thoughtfully provided at: 
http://www.dataplace.org/help/intro.htm

Be sure to take a look at this site. 
http://www.dataplace.org/

More on Home Prices

New Study Weighs In on Valuations
Continued debate and speculation about whether we have a housing price bubble--and if it is about to deflate--dominate the economic headlines.  A new analysis from economists at National City Bank looks at home valuations in 299 metropolitan areas across the United States.  Based on the threshold of a 30 percent deviation from historical trend, the authors conclude that 53 metropolitan housing markets in the U.S.--representing nearly a third of the nation's housing stock--are "extremely over-valued" and there is a substantial risk of a price correction.  The greatest concentration of markets at risk is in California and Florida, and the Greater New York and Greater Boston areas.  You can find the complete analysis--as well as the metro level data set it is based on at:
http://www.nationalcity.com/corporate/EconomicInsight/default.asp (Housing Valuation Analysis)
 

School Satisfaction

ETS Report Measures City-Suburb Differences in Perceptions of K-12 Education
September is, for most American students, back-to-school month, so we offer this seasonal look at schools.  One of the key criteria that families and businesses use to assess the quality of a community is public attitudes about local K-12 schools.  Using data from the American Housing Survey, researchers at the Educational Testing Service have developed some detailed metropolitan-level analyses of the relative satisfaction residents report with local schools.  Data are drawn from the 1990 through 1996 waves of the American Housing Survey and cover roughly 50 of the nation's largest metropolitan areas.  While a wide majority of those households with children in public schools reported that they were "satisfied" with local public education, the percentage varied from 97 percent in Santa Ana, California to less than 80 percent in Oakland, California.  The report also contains information on central city-suburban disparities in satisfaction (Table 8), and the fraction of the dissatisfied who want to move (Table 2).  You'll find the complete 148-page report at:
http://www.ets.org/research/dload/schoolsatisfaction.pdf

Newsletter of the Month:  EDPro

A Weblog for Economic Developers
Personal, opinionated, informal:  like most blogs, EDPro gives you a point of view on the economy and economic development issues.  The purpose of the EDPro weblog is to help economic development professionals -- EDPros -- keep up with the changes sweeping the profession. Blogger Ed Morrison tracks a wide variety of developments in the field and provides insightful commentary.   The blog aims to promote peer learning by sharing the experiences of others in the field.  The EDPro Blog is sponsored by the Center for Regional Economic Issues at Case Western Reserve University.  You can subscribe free:
http://edpro.blogspot.com/

NEW LINKS

Real Estate
September's  new links focus on real estate markets:  new construction, leasing trends, rental rates and related information.

• CB Richard Ellis
  Local Market Reports
  Quarterly report on office, hotel, industrial, and apartment market trends, for metro areas.
  http://www.cbre.com/USA/Research/Market+Reports/Local+Reports+Worldwide/globalresearch.htm
  

• Real Capital Analytics
  Commercial Real Estate Reports
  Reports on office, industrial, retail, and apartment real estate markets for major metropolitan areas. $$
  http://www.rcanalytics.com/home.asp?stay=Y
  

• Marcus & Millichap Research Services
  Apartment Market Outlook
  Periodic news releases for 40 metro areas on apartment market conditions.
  http://www.marcusmillichap.com/Research/News.asp
  

• RealEstateJournal, Wall Street Journal
  Regional Overviews
  Quarterly market reports for 50 metro areas, for four types of real estate (apartment, office, retail, industrial). Data include vacancy rate, asking rent, and supply/demand trends. Reports provided by Reis.com.
  http://www.realestatejournal.com/regionalnews/reiscenter/