Hey Sim, while you are all ears. Some time ago, I thought of starting a website that was content rich, little to no dialogue, just charts of economic stats/data meaningful to the end user....in this case a property investor.
I originally was thinking of one structured dashboard for a pi end user, with all the stuff pertinent to helping pi's make pi decisions - macro economic risk for dev'ts, purchases, fixing rates, throttling down LVRs etc.
Some of the charts I had in mind are on Winston's Charts thread but anything significant to helping pi'ers allocate capital more efficiently via better demand/supply matching, is the end goal:
macro climate:
- interbank cash rate futures implied yield curve to give us an idea of where interest rates are going and when and how long to fix for.
- aussie govt bills notes, and bond yields to create a yield curve
- net foreign debt (maybe with a short blurb on how this effects medium/long term property/economic growth)
- current account (similar blurb)
- retail sales
- leading and coincident indicator stuff.
- Broad money and credit supply/growth.
- build costs estimates /m2.
property supply/demand:
- population growth
- interstate migration and hot spots
- rental vacancies
- loan approvals
- building approvals
- building commencements
prices:
- residex, abs, rismark/rpdata, etc price action for capitals and selected
- regionals.
- formal repeat sales data.
- auction clearance rates
Presume you get my drift.
Last year I was messing with this stuff, getting xls to auto update from ABS and RBA xls....and the intent was to convert this eventually into a website as described above. However, the RBA changed the folder structure of some of their xls, and seemed to have enforced rules to stop auto access of xls on their servers.
Anyway, I reckon creating a web page on Somersoft that updated key data in an intuitive dashboard format, specific for property investor interest would be a great value add for the site......
I reckon this would pull a lot of traffic to the Somersoft brand/forum.
Some form of hot/cold PI indicator might even be developed.
I got what you were trying to do with Invested and think that was a big step towards a quality content site....but the model seems to need to improve traffic flow.
I thought the concept could be expanded on, by generating decision making aids (dashboards and trees) for a diverse range of commercial endeavors, not only pi's .... i.e.
- those self managing SMSFs - increase emerging market exposure, decrease gold.
- various retail sectors - is it a good time to start a restaurant/cafe,
- clothing store, etc?
- mortgage brokers
- real estate agents
- law firms
etc
With the right data mining and web interface, this could develop into a serious value add.....all aimed at helping capital be allocated more efficiently.....and eventually a buyout target for google, microsoft, rupert
Several threats to this business model:
1. The ABS are continuing to make their data more user friendly... but slowly....
2. Low barriers to entry. A group of gun programmers could replicate the model quickly and better if they saw the potential. So anyone who attempted this would have to do it quick and good, and capture the lion's market share and make them stick.
Anyway, all big dreamy stuff, but there's no shortage of uncertainty out there, and the
hunger for quality data to help the investment decision making process, is palpable. Bloomberg, Yahoo, Google, Finviz are all trying to this for the markets.
AIG, WBC and Melbourne Institute, ANZ, NAB, CBA.....they all produce economic data/surveys to aid the decision making process, but no one collates, filters, and distributes relative to specific end user group needs.
Maybe Somersoft can do it for property investing.....and then expand on that into other commercial sectors.
edit: btw, something like this would quickly gain favor with the media. They love their data accessible, up to date ,compressed, and educational (because most haven't studied economics). There'd be no shortage of editorial mentions if you get the product right.
I realize the RBA already publish a chart pack.....with excellent info....but not many know how to interpret the significance of the charts for their investment decisions. The right approach would guide and educate in understanding this stuff, concisely.