Pub. 6 2016-2017 Issue 1

O V E R A C E N T U R Y : B U I L D I N G B E T T E R B A N K S - H E L P I N G C O L O R A D A N S R E A L I Z E D R E A M S July • August 2016 17 3. Takeaway — Be Wary of Preliminary Data: Al- ways remember the data reported today will probably change, potentially by a lot, so don’t bet the farm on early estimates. 4. Takeaway — Single Family is a Big Tent: The U.S. government considers many structures that we think of as “attached” like townhomes and side-by-side condos to be single family homes. 5. Takeaway — Sample Size is Important: Not all data has the same sample size, be careful of drawing stark conclusions based upon data that only looks at a tiny slice of activity and extrapolates it to a national number. It may be a rough bellwether over time, but month to month, it can be misleading. 6. Takeaway — Keep It in Context: Watch out for gratuitous language describing a single period of data without putting it in the context of historical peaks and troughs. Such language is especially suspect when de- scribing seasonally adjusted figures from traditionally slow times during the year. So you might wonder what is the best way to avoid so many of these pitfalls in themysterious world of housing data? Looking for data sets like the Census Permits, which have a very large sample size, is a good start. But many times, to get good infor- mation, you need to collect it yourself or get it from someone that directly collected it. And that usually isn’t free. Ask any real estate consultant if they trust information from someone who hasn’t physically visited comparable developments before they provide their recommendations. At Metrostudy, we are fortunate in this regard because we do primary data collection on a massive number of subdivisions nationwide. And while we often refer to it as our survey, it’s really more of a census, as we physically visit every development with ongoing activity each quarter. This may sound like a commercial, but it’s dif- ficult to characterize it any other way, as it’s an unparalleled research effort in the residential construction data space. We hope you find this document helpful, and please contact us with questions, comments, corrections, or great examples you come across of some of the things we discussed here; contact information follows below. This is far from an exhaustive list of data challenges, but these are among the most common we encounter. n As a fellow CBA member, we would be happy to share this entire white paper with you as complimentary. Simply reach out to me at the email address below and I will send over a link to access the copy. For questions or comments, please contact Heather Knutson, Director of Demand Generation for Metrostudy (www.metrostudy.com) at 720.339.7685 or hknutson@ metrostudy.com. Reach your target audience a ordably. advertise get results DANI GORDEN Advertising Sales 855.747.4003 dani@thenewslinkgroup.com