Market Research Questionnaire.docx

Market Research Questionnaire for Commercial Real Estate Data, Forecasts, & Analysis Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

Background: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) purchases commercial real estate (“CRE”) historical data, forecast data, and written analysis at the market and submarket levels to assist the agency in fulfilling its mission. To purpose of the request for information is to gain an understanding of the products and services, including market information, capabilities, and price estimates offered by CRE data vendors. This market research questionnaire is designed to request high-level information concerning the CRE historical data, forecasts, and written analysis the OCC is considering procuring. Results might be used to inform any agency requirements for the procurement of CRE data.

Disclaimer: A Request for Information (“RFI”) is used when the Government does not presently intend to award a contract but wants to obtain market information and capabilities for planning purposes. This is a request is for market research information and is not a formal Request for Quote or Request for Proposal. Responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Responses to this questionnaire are voluntary and does not commit or imply the OCC will act on a procurement in the future. The OCC will not incur any cost of providing this information.

Response format: Given the nature of these data, we encourage (but do not require) respondents to create spreadsheet tables (with property types running horizontally across the top columns and the questions below running vertically down the spreadsheet rows) to organize information and provide your responses. Please reference individual files, spreadsheets, or tabs in your narrative response to the questions below.

Due Date: Submit your responses to this questionnaire no later than October 17, 2022 at 17:00 Eastern Time. Please email your response to Joey Barden, contracting officer, at Joey.Barden@occ.treas.gov (202-649-7813).

Questionnaire: Interested parties shall provide brief responses to the questions below. Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and MUST BE CLEARLY MARKED. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned. All responses received by OCC will be kept confidential.

Market Fundamental Data at Metro level for Apartment, Office, Retail, and Industrial Properties

1. State the number of metropolitan areas (“metros”) for which your firm provides CRE market fundamental data.[footnoteRef:1] Please provide the number of metros separately for each property type – apartment, office, retail, and industrial. [1: Market fundamental data for the apartment, office, retail, and industrial segments include (but are not limited to) vacancies, rent, net operating income, prices, supply, demand, net completions, net absorption, sales volume, cap rates, construction pipeline, etc.]

1. State whether your firm defines metros by official Census CBSA codes[footnoteRef:2] or if you use a different methodology for defining the geographic boundary of a metro. Also, state whether you can provide a zip code crosswalk for the geographic boundary of each metro. (The OCC uses zip codes to merge various databases with CRE market data.) [2: A metro will be defined as either a Metropolitan Statistical Area (“MSA”), New England City and Town Areas (“NECTAS”), or Metropolitan/NECTA Divisions, and have distinct Core Based Statistical Area (“CBSA”) codes delineated by the Census Bureau. See this BLS article showcasing Metro and NECTA Divisions: https://www.bls.gov/sae/additional-resources/metropolitan-and-necta-divisions-published-by-ces.htm ]

2. Describe how your firm obtains CRE metro-level data. If any data are purchased, from whom do you buy metro-level data? What approximate share of your data are self-generate and what approximate share do you purchase from a 3rd party?

3. Please state the number of metros where historical data are generated completely or mostly from “hard” or “actual” transaction data. Also, state the number of metros where historical data are generated completely or mostly from modeled or imputed data.

4. Provide a list of variables your firm typically provides clients at the metro level. Please provide this list for each of the four main property types.

5. State the year in which the market fundamental data starts for each property segment at the metro level. If the data start in different years for different metros, please state the approximate share of metros that start in each start year. As a hypothetical example, you could report that 20% of metros begin in 1980, with 50% of metros starting in 1990, and 30% of metros starting in 2000.

6. State and explain that types of classifications your firm provides for each property type in the market fundamental data at the metro level. For example, in the office segment, does your firm provide data separately for class A, class B, and class C office buildings? In the retail segment, do you provide data separately for malls, power centers, neighborhood centers, and strip malls? In the apartment segment, do you provide data separately for luxury apartments, mid-market apartments, and workforce housing? In the industrial segment, do you provide data separately for manufacturing, warehouse, and mix-use? These are just hypothetical examples. Your firm might provide classifications other than the examples used here.

Market Fundamental Data at Submarket Level for Apartments, Office, Retail, and Industrial Properties

2. State the number of submarkets for which your firm provides CRE market fundamental data. Provide the number of submarkets separately for each property type – apartment, office, retail, and industrial.

3. Briefly describe the methodology used by your firm to define the geographic boundary of your submarkets. Also, please state whether your firm can provide a zip code crosswalk for the geographic boundary of each submarket. (The OCC uses zip codes to merge various databases with CRE market data.)

4. Describe how your firm obtains CRE submarket-level data. What approximate share of your data are self-generated and what approximate share do you purchase from a 3rd party? If any data are purchased, from whom do you buy submarket-level data?

5. Provide a list of variables your firm typically provides clients at the submarket level. Please provide this list for each of the four main property types.

6. State the year in which the market fundamental data starts for each property segment at the submarket level. If the data start in different years for different submarkets, please state the approximate share of submarkets that start in each start year. As a hypothetical example, you could report that 20% of submarkets begin in 1980, with 50% of submarkets starting in 1990, and the remaining 30% of submarkets starting in 2000.

7. State the types of classifications your firm assigns to each submarket in the market fundamental data. For example, does your firm separately provide data for urban business district, urban, suburban business district, suburban, and rural submarkets?

8. If your firm does provide urban/suburban type classifications, please state the property types for which you provide these classifications.

Market Fundamental Data for Lodging Properties

1. Does your firm provide market fundamental data for the lodging property segment? [footnoteRef:3] If so, do you generate your own lodging market data or do you purchase it from a 3rd party? If purchased, from whom do you buy lodging data? [3: Market fundamental data for the lodging property type include (but are not limited to) occupancies, revenue per available room, average daily rate, average daily revenue, supply, net completions, demand, net absorption, sales volume, property price, NOI, cap rates, construction pipeline, etc.]

2. State the number of metros for which your firm provides lodging data. If your firm provides lodging data for regions within a state (e.g., southwest Virginia or northwest Texas), please do not include those areas in your metro count.

9. For the lodging property type, please state whether your firm defines metros by official Census CBSA codes or if you use a different methodology for defining the geographic boundary of a metro. Also, please state whether you can provide a zip code crosswalk for the geographic boundary of each metro. (The OCC uses zip codes to merge various databases with CRE market data.)

3. OCC understands that large metros have a higher number of sales transactions, which allows CRE data vendors to calculate historical data for variables such as property price, NOI, and cap rate exclusively from “hard” or “actual” transaction data. Additionally, OCC understands that, for small metros with few to no transactions, the historical data for variables such as those noted above rely upon modeled or imputed data. Please confirm this understanding. For the lodging property segment, please state the number of metros where historical data are generated completely or mostly from “hard” or “actual” transaction data. Also, please state the number of metros where historical data are generated completely or mostly from modeled or imputed data.

4. Provide a list of variables your firm typically provides clients at the metro level for the lodging property segment.

5. State the year in which the data start for the lodging property segment. If the data start in different years for different metros, please state the approximate share of metros that start in each start year. As a hypothetical example, you could report that 20% of metros begin in 1980, with 50% of metros starting in 1990, and 30% of metros starting in 2000.

6. What types of classifications does your firm provide for lodging in the market fundamental data at the metro level? For example, do you separately provide lodging data for luxury hotels, upscale hotels, mid-market hotels, and economy hotels?

Forecast Data

1. State whether your firm provides forecasts of market fundamental data for apartment, office, retail, industrial, and hotel data.

2. State whether your firm forecasts quarterly or annual data.

3. If your firm forecasts annual data, please state whether you update/revise the forecast every quarter.

4. Does your firm provide forecast data at the metro level?

5. Does your firm provide forecast data at the submarket level?

6. Please provide a list of variables that you forecast in each property type and at each level (metro and submarket).

7. From what firm do you obtain the macroeconomic data used in your forecast of CRE data?

Property-specific Comparable Sales Data

1. State whether your firm provides property-specific sales price, rent, vacancy, net operating income, and other data on comparable properties sold in an area nearby a target property (i.e., U.S. comps data). Please state for how many metropolitan areas you provide comps data.

Written Analysis

1. State whether your firm provides written analysis of trends within CRE property types at the national level? If so, what types of reports do you regularly issue to clients and how frequently do you release such reports?

2. State whether your firm provides written analysis of trends in CRE property types at the metro level? If so, what types of reports do you regularly issue to clients and how many metros receive written analysis?

3. For written analysis at the metro level, how often does your firm release new written analysis for any given metro? For example, how many times a year do you release new written analysis for the Detroit metro?

Methodology

1. State whether your firm equally-weights or value-weights individual transactions when creating aggregate data series for geographic areas.

2. Provide the property size (in square feet, units, floors, etc.) or other property value thresholds used to determine whether a transaction or property is included in your firm’s CRE data. Please provide the thresholds used for each property type.

Limited Consulting Services Does your firm provide limited consulting service regarding issues related to the CRE industry? Limited consulting services include no more than five requests for new research or analysis per year related to the CRE industry. The new research and analysis requests shall be modest in nature, where the contractor can provide results with one week’s worth of resource commitments.

Miscellaneous

1. Do you provide clients with a quarterly bulk transfer of CRE data, via secure file transfer protocol? If not, how do clients obtain your CRE data?

2. What data rights or data restrictions do you typically include on the data’s use by clients?

3. Do you allow clients to retain data already purchased upon the termination of the contract?

Market Research Estimates Provide market research estimates of your annual pricing rates for market fundamental data, forecasts, comps, and written analysis at the metro and submarket levels, for apartment, office, retail, industrial, and hotel property types. Please do not provide an official, customized price quote for the OCC as we are only conducting market research. Please provide a price estimate for 50 licenses considering users from different departments within the Agency and maybe used at varying geographical locations.