The ultimate goal of any sports team is to win championships,and there has been a remarkable movement toward using data-basedmodels to help build a winner. If you're a sports fan, you'reprobably familiar with the terms “advanced statistics” or “advancedanalytics.” Appropriately, as it is draft season for the NFL, youmay have been hearing about the annual “combine”, in which athletes are tested on multiple,standardized metrics so teams can get a better sense of their valueleading up to draft day. The general idea behind this is thatthrough the collection and analysis of advanced statistics,measures, and/or data for each athlete, trends can be discerned anddecisions can be made based on tendencies. The data can then beused to predict potential future outcomes.

Real estate is no different, and the benefit of havingstandardized templates and data-based processes in place to providemarket statistics and predict trends is tremendous. Imagine adatabase of information related to a portfolio of projects thatallows the user to better understand what type of projects havehealthy reserves, versus those that may be struggling; or data thatcan give a general sense of the cost to replace windows in aparticular type of project in a specific region. Or further to thatpoint, imagine the benefits of a data management system that wouldeasily show you the short or long term cost savings for installinga more efficient window.

HUD Introducing a Better Process
To that end, the U.S.Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is set torelease a standardized reporting template that enables informationto be gathered, analyzed and stored in a systematic, uniform way aspart of their forthcoming revised guidance for underwriting FHAinsured loans. The revised HUD Multifamily Accelerated Process (MAP)Guidelines are scheduled to be released in the coming weeks,and with it comes a revolutionary new database tool to improve theway Capital Needs Assessments (CNAs) are prepared.HUD's CNA e-Tool is an excel workbook (or compatible program thatcan be uploaded via the B2G system) that streamlines the reporting process forthird party providers. The CNA e-Tool, which is a vast improvement overits predecessor, the RAD Excel Tool, is a standardized reportingtemplate that will allow HUD, owners, lenders and third parties tobetter collect, share, and analyze properties, at an individual andportfolio level.