What non-traditional forms of economic data do you pay attention to?
Research guy here. It seems like most analysts in the industry heavily discuss only a few types of data when it comes to CRE (employment, GDP, interest rates, etc). There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m curious if you all have found anything relevant for CRE that isn’t as traditional a source of data. 

For example, I’ve found Google’s COVID mobility data particularly useful as of late. For the office guys, it tells you how much movement there is to places of work in your area. This can give you an idea of if and when people actually start coming back to the office.  


https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/
[{"id": "frguqy9", "text": "OOOOOOOOO.....give me more. \n\nBroker here.\n\nOne of things that I personally look at are credit cards and auto loans as a potential indicator of overall economic health. I am not a huge fan of using the stock market right now as I do not think it provides insight into Main Street. With 40 MM unemployed there is a growing wave of potential defaults. I do not know correlations but something a research person could certainly figure out", "replies": [{"id": "frh4c6i", "text": "Those are good ones. Thanks for sending. Do you pull those through FRED or Haver Analytics? Would love to examine myself. \n\nHere\u2019s a few others I\u2019ve thought of:\n\nIf your market is a major tech hub, then VC funding is huge. I love PWC\u2019s Money tree report\n\nhttps://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/technology/moneytree/explorer.html#/type=quarter&amp;category=Sector&amp;currentQ=Q1%202020&amp;qRangeStart=Q4%202013&amp;qRangeEnd=Q1%202020&amp;chartType=bar\n\nIf your concerned about hospital/biotech demand then NIH funding is key. Here\u2019s a site where you can see all the grants by hospital. \n\n\nhttps://report.nih.gov/award/ \n\nI love the opentable data for retail info. Really shows how restaurant reservations have fallen off a cliff \n\n\nhttps://www.opentable.com/state-of-industry", "replies": [{"id": "frko75i", "text": "Homebase has a good data series available right now as well.  \n[https://joinhomebase.com/data/covid-19/](https://joinhomebase.com/data/covid-19/)\n\nSTR is also posting some useful stuff, though I suppose it's not necessarily non-traditional.\n\n[https://str.com/data-insights-blog/coronavirus-hotel-industry-data-news](https://str.com/data-insights-blog/coronavirus-hotel-industry-data-news)\n\nMost of this stuff is specific to COVID-19. Probably won't stick around afterwards.\n\nI've also seen some search data floating around for searches for apartment listings, like this metro vs that metro type stuff.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}, {"id": "frhxld2", "text": "\u201c stock market isn\u2019t the economy \u201c the reason that quote exist", "replies": [{"id": "frkxaie", "text": "The stock market is simply gambling on sociology and nobody can convince me otherwise.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "frguz5s", "text": "I do not, but that link is excellent! Thank you very much for sharing that.  \n\nThis isn't what you are asking for, but I do find the NYTimes does a great job with data visualization (filter for \"hot spots\").   [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html)", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "frh5w9r", "text": "Comb through Fed FRED, so much data there", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "frhgari", "text": "This is a small one, but when I'm looking around a neighborhood trying to get a quick feel, I pay attention to how many cars/boats/RV's are parked on streets, and the condition/cleanliness of those vehicles. It's a trick passed down from my old boss, and it is a great way to quickly get a sense of the area's finances. Washing a car takes either money and time to get it washed, or more time to do it yourself, both of which are a luxury on the lower end of the economic spectrum, and of course big motor toys are a luxury to anyone.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "frvqmjw", "text": "I dont have any hard data but I have alot of friends in the roll off dumpster and transfer station business and I ask about construction trash volumes from time to time because trash cant lie about how much work is getting done in an area.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]