Molson Hart

I grew up in the northeast, in a suburban commuter town that was on the metro north line. Then, I spent some formative years living in China and New York City. Based on this experience, proximity to mass transit was a very important factor in determining desirability of a place

The population of unfortunate people on Dallas' mass transit is basically at a critical mass to the point where it deters normal citizens from using it. So, if you have a nice neighborhood a nearby station can actually be a net-negative. Incomprehensible, until you see it.

Anyways, Dallas is growing like crazy and I believe has built more apartments in the past couple of years than any u.s. city but New York. Interestingly much of this development is happening in the affluent towns north of the city center, places like Plano.

Even with a good model based on census data or proximity to transport, it's hard to find a good location without walking the streets and living locally so you can understand the often complex dynamics that make some neighborhoods thrive, survive, or die.

I recently met a guy who is doing just that. Only they buy the complexes and then run the buildings. But it's all remote and they do all of their research remotely with a ton of analytics. It seems like there is actually a lot of free data about this stuff—census data, municipal.