I am looking for a provider of pipeline reporting for the multifamily
real estate market in downtown Minneapolis (minimum boundaries
follow).  Samples of  providers that provide adequate and complete
information for other cities include M|PF Research
(www.mpfresearch.com), Delta Associates (www.deltaassoicates.com) and
Dupre + Scott and Associates (www.dsaa.com).
     
This pipeline report should contain detailed information by submarket,
including the following:
     
* Names, addresses, property developers, number of units and
completion dates of recently completed apartment complexes
* Names, addresses, property developers, number of units and
completion dates of under construction or planned apartment complexes
* Average rents for apartments in downtown Minneapolis (ideally,
average monthly rent, % change year-on-year, average rent for Studio,
1BR, 2BR and 3BR, but I am flexible on this point)
* Average overall occupancy for apartments in downtown Minneapolis

Downtown Minneapolis may be minimally defined as the Mississippi River
to the Northeast, Interstate 94 to the West and 24th Street to the
South.
    
Please contact me with any questions.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 29 Sep 2003 18:06 PDT

Hello logicalboyla-ga,

Nice to see you back again.  

I was one of the first to answer your earlier multifamily pipeline
questions (I pointed you to Dupre and Scott) but wasn't able to answer
the others because the information didn't seem to be out there.

Now, I think, it is!  And available for pretty much all major
metropolitan areas, Minneapolis (and Detroit) included.

Problem is...I can't be 100% sure, because I can't see the actual
reports unless I were to purchase them myself.

The service offers sample reports for other geographic areas, and they
are chock full of the type of information you are seeking...new
projects, names and addresses, rental data, etc.  But they are also
loaded down with other types of data (offices, single family homes,
etc) and don't really show what a well-tailored multifamily report
would look like.

Given a degree of uncertainity, I'd like to know how you wish to
proceed?  I could:

--post information about the service as an answer to your question and
you could then confirm with them (I hope) that they have everything
(or pretty close to everything) that you're looking for.  (If it turns
out I was mistaken, you could always let me know, and I could ask the
editors to withdraw my answer...).

--cruise through their sample reports and cut and past a lot of sample
information to show you here...a messy prospect, since much of the
presentation is in the form of charts, spreadsheets and other things
that just don't reproduce well (or at all) here in the Google Answers
box.  But I'm sure I could give you a sense of what's available just
the same.

Or perhaps you have a different option to suggest.  

Sorry that there isn't a more straightforward way of going about this,
but sometimes, that's just life in cyberspace, I suppose.

Let me know what you think.

pafalafa-ga

---

Clarification of Question by logicalboyla-ga on 30 Sep 2003 10:08 PDT

I think your first option (answering the question provisionally, with
the understanding that I'll ask for a refund if the vendor can't in
fact deliver) is the best route to take.  I am inevitably going to
have to hop on the telephone (how 20th century!) and call any vendor
you share with me to re-share these parameters and confirm that they
can in fact (and still do in fact) meet them.  There's no reason for
you to go to all the labor of your option 2 when I can obtain a refund
if the vendor can't follow through--which is usually hard to determine
until I get in direct touch with the researcher and sometimes even
then only when I have a paid-for report and have read it.  (I have
recently had to ask vendors in two other cities for custom reports
because their standard reports didn't meet my parameters.)

In any event, if you can deliver me vendors who will work with me to
get me the bulk of the data I need, I'll pay you for them and if it
turns out there are substantial holes they can't fill, I'll work with
you to get a refund.

These are definitely $200 questions, eh?

Okay, thanks for the feedback.  That's my preferred option as well.

If I'm reading things right, you should be able to get just about
everything you need for Minneapolis...and Detroit....and just about
every other major metropolitan area you've expressed an interest in
(and if I'm reading it wrong, then, boy, will I feel foolish...).

The service I found is called "Property and Portfolio Research" and is
on the web at:

http://www.ppr.info/

From the main page, click on "Samples" on the top left-hand side and
you'll be taken to:

http://www.ppr.info/products/samples/index.html

I'm sure you'll want to look over many of the reports featured on this
page, but the two of most immediate interest, it seems to me, are:

------------------------

Fundamentals:

Quarterly forecasts of real estate fundamentals, including vacancy
rates, demand, supply, and rent changes for 54 urban areas and six
property types.

-------

PPR/Dodge Pipeline:

Comprehensive database of new and planned construction for six
property types and 318 urban areas, updated monthly and delivered via
the Web.

-----------------------------------

These look like your best bets, and you can see sample reports for
each.

The pipeline report, in particular, seems very detailed and can be
custom-tailored to your needs.

You can see more details about the pipeline report here:

http://www.ppr.info/bookstore/servlet/ppr.bookstore.Bookstore?toPage=/pipeline/index.jsp

and by clicking on the "download sample" text over on the right-hand
side of the page, it will open up a sample spreadsheet (which is
otherwise easy to miss, I'm afraid):

http://www.ppr.info/products/samples/xls/samplepipe.xls

Ordinarily, each project on the spreadsheet can be opened up still
further for additional details, but this feature isn’t enabled in the
sample document.

After you have checked in with PPR and confirmed the content of their
reports, please let me know well they meet your needs.  It's not often
I'm able to answer multiple questions with a single answer, but I'm
hoping that, in this case, we both got a bit lucky.

All the best,

pafalafa-ga


search strategy:  Google search on:  multifamily pipeline report
Minneapolis

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Request for Answer Clarification by logicalboyla-ga on 06 Oct 2003 10:52 PDT

This is a GREAT resource.   It doesn't completely close the loop
because they can't provide the rent and occupancy data (but that's the
MUCH easier part of the question, fortunately!), but they can service
me everywhere, including the nearly impossible markets where I'm
having trouble researching like Baton Rouge and El Paso.  Thank you so
much!!!

---

Clarification of Answer by pafalafa-ga on 06 Oct 2003 11:06 PDT

Whew...I've been waiting with bated breath (whatever *that* means) to
hear back from you on this.

Glad it worked out so well, and thanks so much for the generous rating
and kind words.

I was surprised a bit at what you said about rent info not being
available, because I definitely saw some at the site, in the
"Fundamentals" report, I think (though if I remember correctly, it was
indexed data, rather than absolute rent figures).

Anyway, I did come across other sources of data besides PPR, though
PPR seemed the best of the lot.  If you find you're still looking for
additional data beyond what PPR can provide, you know where to find
me...

paf

---

Request for Answer Clarification by logicalboyla-ga on 06 Oct 2003 11:39 PDT

The rent/occupancy info unfortunately isn't broken down by submarket,
but, as I said, it SHOULD be pretty easy to find vendors for all the
markets I need info for who can sell me just rent & occupancy
data--it's the pipeline data that is really expensive to collect and
hard to come by.  If I have any trouble, I can always ask another
question!

---

Clarification of Answer by pafalafa-ga on 06 Oct 2003 12:11 PDT

Thanks for the explanation...see you back here, one of these days.

Wow...  this was definitely a $200 question and a $200 answer.  Thank you!