Macro blogs and online info?

Question

What blogs and online data sources do my fellow armchair economists follow?  I like calculatedriskblog.com and http://www.lpsvcs.com/NewsRoom/IndustryData/Pages/default.aspx from the loan servicing people.

Also use local realty data for individual MSAs when I can find it.  Often not as detailed or independent as I would like (brokers, go figure :)).

Anyone got other suggestions or ideas?

Steve Babiak · Answer

Bill,

I could be wrong, but I'll try to explain the reason I think BP allows the contact info to be in the signature.

True, the contact info in the signature is something that promotes one's own interests.  But I believe that the search engines (Google) are not given that signature information - so the desire to get better search rankings isn't present.

And BP is about real estate networking - people have to have some way to make contacts.

Sorry for straying off topic here ...

Jon Holdman · Answer

What's not OK:

Any site that requires any payment to get information.
Any site that requires any personal information to get information.  Yes, that includes something as simple as a name and e-mail address.
Any site that is a competitor to BiggerPockets.com
Any site that you own, unless the page that's directly linked is fully open (requires no info to see the data) and does not contain any advertising or lead capture sections.
Any site like the above that you have any financial relationship with.
Any affiliate program.

If its a site that provides information that you do have a relationship with, the relationship must be disclosed.

Josh is the ultimate decision maker about any link.

Steve Babiak · Answer

There are a couple of "competitor" sites to BP - those will be removed.  And there are a couple of sites that are "non-reciprocal" - they remove all BP links even when BP was allowing theirs; now BP removes those too ...

So Bill, I think you hit on one of those in the post you mentioned above this one.

Joshua Dorkin · Answer

Steve is correct.  You're more than welcome to mention the above sites or any others, but just be sure they aren't any that you're vested in...

Bill Gulley · Answer

Jon, thanks for the outline. Maybe these should be moved as we are getting OT. But I see sites where people have them in the signaure section and many are certainly promotional. With links to other sites, is that a lead capture section? Thanks

Steve Babiak · Answer

When the moderators leave them alone :cool:

I'd venture they are OK - at least IMO  :D

Jeff S. · Answer

I like  Dr. Housing Bubble and Patrick.net.

Though slanted towards California real estate, Dr. Housing Bubble provides great data analysis.

Patrick.net provides some commentary, but is more of a real estate news aggregator.

...

Disclaimer: I have no relation to these sites and hope they are legal references here. (How am I supposed to know?)

Bill Gulley · Answer

Thanks Steve, I mentioned a site long ago when I was new here that was not mine (I don't have one, LOL) and it was removed.  So I thought gah, dah, dah....I'm probably wrong on that.....

Sources for economic information varies widely from where you pull the info. Watch out for "news" agencies. I would go to government sites. Department of Labor, The Congressional Report will be loaded with information. If I were interested in "historic employment data" that's what I would goggle.

There are building starts, building permits, new home sales, real estate sales and real estate loans closed on a monthly and quarterly basis.
All economic indicators, GNP, CPI etc can be justified as a watch list for real estate activities.

I simply look to sales and permits in my local area since that impacts the market I'm interested in and it does not really relate so much to national trends, at least to the extent that makes any determination on a local level.

Sorry if I got the rules wrong....

Steve Babiak · Answer

Bill,

Rules are intended to not allow people to promote their own interests, so I think the two sites cited above will be OK with the moderators.

That said, anybody contributing here should be aware to not toot their own horn ...

Jimmy Oldrich · Answer

Even for just informational sites?  Neither of these sites are pitching anything.  I have seen references to informative news articles on this forums as well.

Thanks for the heads up.

Let me rephrase: What indicators do you watch?  I like the REO inventory level and the rate of inventory change.  Unemployment is always a biggie.

What sources do you use to get this statistical data that is not trying to sell anyone anything :).

Macro blogs and online info?

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