collecting data for home building

[Gareth Fisher]

I'm currently researching real estate markets.  Outside of the north east.  My long term strategy is custom home building.  What indicators or data would you be most interested in.   For example, I would expect the data one would be collecting would be much different for a buy and holds strategy vs building.    Building to me seems to be a little more complex.    I was thinking days on market, cost to build, local zoning regulations, land affordability all make a market attractive.