I'm a big baseball fan, dating back to my childhood years collecting baseball cards. I remember studying all the stats printed in what must have been size 4 font size on each card. Back then, I'd focus on the glamour stats: home runs for batters and strikeouts for pitchers.

In the years since, baseball stats grew exponentially in sophistication. A whole new field was invented: sabermetrics. Now, baseball fans focus on advanced stats that better capture a player's value. Baseball cards have evolved too. When my 8-year-old son opens a pack of baseball cards these days (which, by the way, are crazy expensive now), he looks first at a player's WAR (wins above replacement).

Apartment stats have similarly evolved over the years. The tools we now have to gauge apartment market performance are much more precise, more relevant and more timely.