June 19th, 2009

Most troubled states: where will they be in 2013?

By John Paul Murphy, Content Services Manager

Today on CNNMoney.com an article was released which identified the five states with the highest unemployment rates in the month of May.  Those hardest hit states were Michigan, Oregon, South Carolina, Rhode Island, and California. 

So long as you haven’t been residing in a cave or under a rock somewhere, you know the country is struggling with joblessness; more importantly looking forward, will these states be in shambles in the future? With this thought in mind and out of sheer curiosity, investigating the employment situation in those states seemed like a good idea.

The following data points were cherry picked from the Onboard databases to help paint a picture of the employment situation in 2013:

• 2013 State  Employment projections, highest and lowest within the state
• 2013 County  Employment projections, highest and lowest within the state
• 2013 Place Employment projections, highest and lowest within the state

All projection data is proprietary information from Onboard Informatics.

Michigan

• State 2013 Employment Projection: 4,731,843
• County with the Lowest 2013 Employment Projection: Keweenaw County, 828
• County with the Highest 2013 Employment Projection: Wayne County, 803,976
• Place with the Lowest 2013 Employment Projection: Vandalia, Mi (Cass County), 24
• Place with the Highest 2013 Employment Projection: Detroit, Mi (Wayne County), 294,230

Oregon

• State 2013 Employment Projection: 1,950,118
• County with the Lowest 2013 Employment Projection: Wheeler County, 522
• County with the Highest 2013 Employment Projection: Wayne County, 364,400
• Place with the Lowest 2013 Employment Projection: Greenhorn, Or (Baker County), 24
• Place with the Highest 2013 Employment Projection: Portland, Or (Clackamas County), 294,230

South Carolina

• State 2013 Employment Projection: 2,148,003
• County with the Lowest 2013 Employment Projection: Allendale County, 3,180
• County with the Highest 2013 Employment Projection: Greenville County, 221,147
• Place with the Lowest 2013 Employment Projection: Lockhart, SC (Union County), 13
• Place with the Highest 2013 Employment Projection: Charleston, SC (Berkeley County), 52,164

Rhode Island

• State 2013 Employment Projection: 545,575
• County with the Lowest 2013 Employment Projection: Bristol County, 28,166
• County with the Highest 2013 Employment Projection: Providence County, 311,167
• Place with the Lowest 2013 Employment Projection: Melville, RI (Newport County), 624
• Place with the Highest 2013 Employment Projection: Providence, RI (Providence County), 76,423

California

• State 2013 Employment Projection: 18,419,297
• County with the Lowest 2013 Employment Projection: Alpine County, 606
• County with the Highest 2013 Employment Projection: Los Angeles County, 4,905,858
• Place with the Lowest 2013 Employment Projection: Storrie, Ca (Plumas County), 2
• Place with the Highest 2013 Employment Projection: Los Angeles, Ca (Los Angeles County), 1,866,663

The employment numbers represent the projected number of people working within a specified geography level (state/county/place). It does not reflect the number of people that live and work within the specified geography level (i.e. people living and working in different counties).  If you have any questions, please contact us.

Tags: CNNMoney, community data, community information, content, data, employment, news, onboard, Onboard Informatics, unemployment rate.

March 10th, 2009

Weekly Data Updates & Add-Ins: 03/02 – 03/06

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

At Onboard Informatics it is our goal to provide the most comprehensive and up to date data possible. Please see below the latest data records regarding home sales transactions.

·  Weekly Sales Aggregate Processing: 95,461

·  Total Number of Sales Transactions: 40,937,371

For more information on all our data categories contact us at info@onboardinformatics.com or call 646.747.4273.

Tags: community information, data, data updates, home sales, Onboard Informatics, Real Estate.

March 5th, 2009

Community 2009 CoPilot and Navigator Release

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

Today we released the Community 2009 data into our CoPilot and Neighborhood Navigator products. As we communicated last week the changes will add new reports to both.

Fair Market Rents was added to both CoPilot and Navigator and Smoking Ban was added to Navigator. To see the full details please refer to the following post: http://blog.onboardinformatics.com/2009/02/changes-navigator-and-copilot-community-overview-2009/.

If you do not want to display either of these reports on your Navigator please contact our Product Support team at support@onboardinformatics.com.

Tags: community data, community information, copilot, data updates, neighborhood navigator.

February 27th, 2009

CHANGES – Navigator and CoPilot Community Overview 2009

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

Onboard Informatics will be releasing the Community 2009 update to our CoPilot and Neighborhood Navigator products in the coming weeks. For the CoPilot reports we will be including HUD Fair Market Rents. We have added two new reports to the Community Profile in Navigator:  Smoking Ban information and HUD Fair Market Rents.

If you do not want to display these reports in your CoPilot or Navigator products please contact our Product Support team at support@onboardinformatics.com.

CoPilot

As was messaged last year, Onboard will no longer support certain debt/net worth fields. As a result the following tables will be eliminated from all CoPilot reports (both new reports and reports that were previously created and saved):

Financial Report:

Now included in all CoPilot reports is a report on Fair Market Rents:

Neighborhood Navigator

1. Smoking Ban data – This data will be provided at each geographic search level within Navigator. The data indicates whether an area has a smoking ban in place for the following:

• Workplaces
• Restaurants
• Bars

A report will look like this:

2. Fair Market Rents – These estimates will also be provided at each geographic level. Navigator will show estimates for the following:

• Studio
• One Bedroom
• Two Bedroom
• Three Bedroom
• Four Bedroom

This Fair Market Rents Report will look like this:

Onboard’s data team works diligently to estimate FMRs for our place, zip and county level data (not all counties are identified in HUDs base data). Please note that FMR values typically occur at a county or Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).

The definition of FMR from the HUD website states:

“FMRs are gross rent estimates.  They include the shelter rent plus the cost of all tenant-paid utilities, except telephones, cable or satellite television service, and internet service. HUD sets FMRs to assure that a sufficient supply of rental housing is available to program participants.  To accomplish this objective, FMRs must be both high enough to permit a selection of units and neighborhoods and low enough to serve as many low-income families as possible.  The level at which FMRs are set is expressed as a percentile point within the rent distribution of standard-quality rental housing units^[1].  The current definition used is the 40th percentile rent, the dollar amount below which 40 percent of the standard-quality rental housing units are rented^[2].  The 40th percentile rent is drawn from the distribution of rents of all units occupied by recent movers (renter households who moved to their present residence within the past 15 months).  HUD is required to ensure that FMRs exclude non-market rental housing in their computation.  Therefore, HUD excludes all units falling below a specified rent level determined from public housing rents in HUD’s program databases as likely to be either assisted housing or otherwise at a below-market rent, and units less than two years old.”

^[1] Standard-quality rental housing units have the following attributes:  Occupied rental units paying cash rent; Specified renter on 10 acres or less; With full plumbing; With full kitchen; Unit more than 2 years old, and Meals not included in rent.

^[2] FMRs were initially set at the 45^th percentile, but were reduced to the 40^th percentile, beginning with the FY1995 FMRs. The vast majority of areas remain at the 40^th percentile rent. However, certain areas are assigned the 50^th percentile rent. Fiftieth percentile FMRs were established by a rule published on October 2, 2000, that also established the eligibility criteria used to select areas that would be assigned 50th rather than the normal 40th percentile FMRs. The objective was to give PHAs a tool to assist them in de-concentrating voucher program use patterns. The three FMR area eligibility criteria were: 1. FMR Area Size: the FMR area had to have at least 100 census tracts.  2. Concentration of Affordable Units: 70 percent or fewer of the tracts with at least 10 two-bedroom units had at least 30 percent of these units with gross rents at or below the 40th percentile two-bedroom FMR; and, 3. Concentration of Participants: 25 percent or more of the tenant-based rental program participants in the FMR area resided in the 5 percent of census tracts with the largest number of program participants. The rule also specified that areas assigned 50th percentile FMRs were to be re-evaluated after three years, and that the 50th percentile rents would be rescinded unless an area has made at least a fraction of a percent progress in reducing concentration and otherwise remains eligible. (See 24 CFR 888.113.)

Tags: community information, copilot, data, HUD, neighborhood data, neighborhood navigator, Onboard Informatics.

October 6th, 2008

Onboard’s At It Again!

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

While the market might be in turmoil and most companies are cutting back, we are stepping forward and taking advantage of the opportunities being created.  Onboard Informatics recently partnered up with GreatSchools and is now the exclusive partner of GreatSchools in the real estate industry.

GreatSchools was founded in 1998 by Bill Jackson, in order to improve education in grades K-12 by inspiring parents to get involved.  They provide parents with school data, expert advice, articles, and community content, invite users to register on their site, so parents can publish, post, and connect with members of their online parent community.

GreatSchools.net profiles more than 90,000 public elementary, middle and high schools in the United States. Charter schools, magnet schools, year-round schools, and some continuation and alternative schools are included as well.

In addition, GreatSchools.net includes basic information on more than 30,000 private schools. This information is limited because private schools are not required to give tests or report results.

GreatSchools Ratings provide an overview of a school’s test performance by comparing the school’s state standardized test results to those of other schools in the state.  Ratings are given for each grade and student category (gender, ethnicity or other student group) for which test results are available, and are updated quarterly.

The ratings are derived by calculating ratings for each grade/subject combination; then averaging those ratings into the By Grade ratings.

The Exclusive Markets we’re now licensed to market, sell, and distribute GS Ratings to are:

• National Real Estate Broker websites – whether they are using the same website or different websites (example: Century 21)
• Regional Broker Websites (example: Prudential Fox and Roach Realtors
• Local Agent Websites (example: http://www.delawareliving.com/)
• Web Development agencies focused exclusively on creating broker/agent websites (example: Z57 Internet Solutions)
• Organizations that provide the regional MLS listings (example: San Francisco Multiple Listing Service)
• Alternative Sellers of residential homes (example: ForSaleByOwner.com)
• Companies whose primary focus is operating real estate only portals (example: HomePages.com)

Our clients will benifit from having comprehensive profiles, that go “beyond the numbers” to include a school’s culture and skill set, state test scores, teacher profiles, and even the physical condition of the school buildings. They will be able share what parents have to say about the school with their clients and give first hand parental testimonies, far better than any statistics.

We’re excited to be partnering with GreatSchools and to continue providing our clients with the information they need to be local experts and compete in their markets.  In a time of crisis and when it’s imperative to be at the top of your game, we hope these kind of partnerships and additions help our clients to overcome the struggles of a down market.

Tags: community information, greatschools, onboard, Real Estate, school ratings, schools.