Market Intelligence — Desktop Study — Analyst

For the Analyst

You are where the value is made. A developer is deciding whether to put millions of dollars of capital into the ground, and before they commit they need a firm, holistic understanding of the market — not a single number, but the whole picture: who lives and works here and whether they can afford the rent, how much supply is coming and how fast the market absorbs it, what a unit can actually command, and how all of that translates into the returns the deal has to earn. That understanding is the difference between a confident yes, a disciplined no, and an expensive mistake.

They can’t see that market the way you can. You are the one who gathers it, verifies it, and assembles it into something they can act on — every scorecard, rent range, comp, absorption figure and demographic in this study comes from the record you build. When you get it right, the client understands exactly what they are buying and what it will yield; when it’s thin or wrong, they are underwriting a decision on sand. That is the weight of this step, and it is where you create value: not by filling in fields, but by handing a capital decision-maker the market, whole and true. Your accuracy and clarity are the product the client is paying for.

Know the market before the client engagement

The value you deliver doesn’t begin when a deposit lands — it begins long before, in the work you do continuously so that the moment a client engagement begins you already understand their market better than baseline. A fast desktop study is only credible if the ground under it is already current. This is a standing responsibility, not something started at kickoff.

As an analyst you are expected to:

• Stay fully abreast of national trends — capital markets, interest rates, construction costs, migration, supply, absorption and rent growth — and keep a running record of them, so your perspective is documented, not just remembered.
• Periodically update the main client portal dashboard, so the figures clients see when they log in are current.
• Publish articles on the portal landing page. Every analyst contributes to the Platmetrix News stream on the portal home — national trends and pertinent case studies — so clients see the firm’s market thinking, not only their own report.
• Keep your market data fresh. Update the data that feeds your desktop studies and market intelligence reports frequently enough that, on any market you cover, you can begin from a better-than-baseline understanding before a client engagement even starts.

The Desktop Study

The Desktop Study is the first tier of a Market Intelligence engagement — it unlocks once the client’s deposit is paid. It is the fast, decision-grade read on a market: enough to decide whether a site is worth pursuing before committing to the full study.

What the Desktop Study covers

• Site scorecards for the candidate parcels
• Core comparables for the market
• Go / No-Go radar
• Interactive mapping
• Headline underwriting
• Suggested market absorption
• Projected rent ranges by unit type
• Demand calculation
• High-level direct rent comps
• Demographics

Your kickoff: assignment from the Director of Sales

When a client pays the deposit for a desktop study, the alert goes to the Director of Sales — not to you directly. The Director of Sales owns the client relationship and assigns the market to a market analyst. That assignment is your cue to build and publish.

1. Deposit paid. The client’s tier flips to deposit-paid and the Director of Sales is notified automatically.
2. You’re assigned. The Director of Sales hands the market to you.
3. You build & publish. Open Edit Market Data, populate the metrics (next section), produce the study, and confirm the client’s Open Desktop Study unlocks.

How a deposit happens — the chain that reaches you

So you can see where your kickoff comes from, here is the full chain from quote to assignment:

1. The quote is created. A Sales admin, the Director of Sales (or a Master/Platform admin) builds it in the Quote Builder — selecting the services, applying internal pricing, and setting the deposit and balance. A manager-approval gate holds the quote until it is approved.
2. The quote is issued. Once approved, the client receives it; the deposit and balance become secure payment links attached to that client’s market access.
3. The client pays the deposit. In their portal, the market card shows Deposit Required with a Pay Deposit button (a Stripe checkout link).
4. Access is granted. On confirmation of payment, an admin or the sales rep moves the client to the deposit-paid tier, and the desktop study unlocks on their card (Open Desktop Study). Access updates within one business day of payment confirmation.
5. You’re brought in. That tier change notifies the Director of Sales, who assigns the market to you. (Later the client pays the balance and the full report unlocks.)

Populating the market data, step by step

Everything the client sees in the desktop study — the scorecards, the Go/No-Go read, the rent picture — is built from the market record you enter. This is where you create the value: a developer about to commit capital is trusting these figures to decide yes or no. Enter them well and the study earns its fee. Here is exactly where you go, what you enter, and how you publish it.

Where you work: Edit Market Data

You populate everything in one screen — Edit Market Data — then Save. The study reads what you saved. This is the whole form, top to bottom:

Getting there: Admin Console → ✎ Edit Market Data (top-right of the console header) → the editor opens in a new tab, live.

Load your market at the top, work down through the sections, and Save at the bottom. Saving publishes to the study — no file to re-upload.

Step by step

1. Open Edit Market Data — edit rights required (analyst, sales manager, or admin; you do not need full administrator rights). As an analyst, open it from Edit Market Data in your portal account menu; admins can also reach it from the ✎ Edit Market Data button in the Admin Console header. It opens using your signed-in session, and your role is checked on the server: analysts can load and save drafts; the sales manager and admins can also approve. Without an editing role a Save is refused. (Direct link: market-editor.html. If Supabase isn’t connected at all, the page drops to a labeled DEMO mode where changes are held locally and never saved.)
2. Load the market. In Market ID (matches the page ID) type the market’s id — e.g. dayton_oh — and click ↻ Load. An existing market fills in with its saved data; a brand-new market opens blank.
3. Header & thesis. Set City, State, Title, and write the Market thesis — the one-paragraph “why this market” the client reads first. This frames the whole study.
4. Demographics. County and city population, median HH income, median home value, median age, bachelor’s+ %. Fill these three ways and choose per field which the study uses: type them in the Manual column, auto-fill that column from a CoStar/ACS PDF in Import from PDF, or Pull from Census — add one or more counties/places under Census geography (populations sum, medians are population-weighted) and the ACS 5-year values fill the Census column. Set the Use in study selector on each row to pick Manual or Census. Census figures are estimates with a ~1–2 year lag, so confirm before publishing.
5. Employers & announcements. Add major employers (name + headcount) and any recent announcements or developments — the demand story behind the market.
6. Submarkets. Enter the submarket names (you draw their boundaries in the tool).
7. KPIs & reporting period. Set the Reporting period label (e.g. 26Q2) and As-of date, then Inventory, Under construction, Pipeline, 12-mo absorption, Vacancy, Asking rent, Sale price/unit, and Cap rate.
8. Market fundamentals. Enter Suggested market absorption (units/yr), Projected annual demand, and the Demand calculation / method — the reasoning a client can follow.
9. Projected rent ranges. Click + Add unit type and enter each (Studio, 1BR, 2BR, 3BR) with its low–high asking rent.
10. Direct rent comps. Click + Add comp and enter each competing property — name, unit type, rent, distance.
11. Save. Click ⇩ Save market data. This writes the record to Supabase and appends a dated snapshot to the trend. The study reads it on the next load — the report is now generated from your data, with nothing to re-upload.

Field reference — the Dayton example

Representative values for the dayton_oh 26Q2 snapshot, so you can see the shape and units of each field:

Fundamentals — required on every market

Beyond the KPIs, every desktop study carries these five. Each one answers a question the client will ask:

How the desktop study is built and served

The desktop study a client opens is not a static page, and it is not something you rebuild from scratch each time. It is two pieces working together:

What happens when a client opens it

1. They click Open Desktop Study. The portal sends them to the protected viewer with the market id and v=study.
2. Access is checked. The viewer confirms their tier (deposit-paid unlocks the study) and, if cleared, downloads the study tool file from protected-pages.
3. The tool reads the data. On load, the tool pulls the market_data record for that Market ID.
4. It renders the study. Scorecards, KPIs, the fundamentals, comps and demographics are drawn from that record.

The distinction that matters: data vs. layout

Why it’s built this way

One tool, many refreshes. The same tool serves every reporting period on that market, so you keep the study current by saving data — not by rebuilding or re-uploading. It is also why a new field you enter appears automatically once the tool has been set to read it.

Draft, review & approve — nothing goes live until it’s signed off

Your edits are never client-facing the instant you save. Market data now moves through a review gate, so you can build and save your work freely, and only an approved version reaches the client.

1. Save draft. As you work, click Save draft. Your progress is stored privately (in market_drafts) — clients never see it, and you can return to it any time.
2. Submit for review. When the market is ready, click Submit for review. It goes to the sales manager (the Director of Sales).
3. Approve & publish. Only the Director of Sales (or an administrator) can approve. Approving copies your draft into the live record the market tool reads — that is the moment it becomes client-facing.
4. Returned for changes? If the manager sends it back, the status shows Changes requested with their note. Make the edits, save, and submit again.

Producing the report as a PDF

1. Finalize & save the record. In Edit Market Data, complete every KPI, employer, submarket and narrative for the period, then Save. The dated snapshot populates the trend charts.
2. Open the desktop study. From the client's project card choose Open Desktop Study, or go straight to viewer.html?id=dayton_oh&v=study. Confirm the scorecards, comps, Go/No-Go radar, maps and headline underwriting all render.
3. Proof it. Check the reporting-period label and as-of date, the submarket list, the employer table, and that the trend sparklines show. Fix in the editor and re-save if anything is off.
4. Print to PDF. Press Ctrl/Cmd-P. Destination: Save as PDF. Paper: Letter, Portrait. Margins: Default. Scale: Fit to width. Background graphics: ON — essential, or the navy panels and green accents drop out.
5. Prefer the toolbar export if present. If the study toolbar shows an Export / Download PDF button, use it — it preserves layout better than the browser print path.
6. Name it consistently. Market_Period_Type → Dayton_OH_26Q2_DesktopStudy.pdf.
7. Deliver or store. Attach the PDF to the engagement, or upload it to the client's protected storage so it is available at their tier.

Turning it into a Site Intelligence upsell — and a Full Study

The desktop study deliberately stops at the market. That boundary is the opportunity: the moment it flags a promising submarket, the client's next questions are site-level and underwriting-level — which is exactly Site Intelligence and the Full Study.

To Site Intelligence (site-level)

When a submarket scores well, the client asks “is this parcel buildable?” — topography, utilities, environmental, zoning. In your desktop-study narrative, name the open site-level questions explicitly (e.g. “Austin Landing infill — confirm sanitary capacity and floodplain”). Those bullets become the Site Intelligence scope and make the upsell self-evident.

To the Full Study (underwriting-level)

When the client wants to underwrite for real, the Full Study adds the complete development proforma, IRR/DSCR, sources & uses, and sensitivity — everything the desktop's headline underwriting only gestures at.

How the upsell is executed

1. Flag it in the study. Call out the 2–3 highest-potential submarkets or sites and the specific due diligence each needs. This is the analyst's seed for the sale.
2. Scope & quote. The sales rep opens the Quote Builder and adds Site Intelligence (per site) and/or the Full Study to the engagement.
3. Client commits. On payment an admin raises the client's tier — Site Intelligence appears as an Active service on the project, and paid-in-full unlocks the Full Study on the same Dayton market.
4. You build the next layer. No re-creation: the market record you already populated carries forward — you add the site-level and underwriting depth on top.

Moving to the Full Study

When you're ready to underwrite for real, pay in full and the same project unlocks the Full Study — deeper comps, full underwriting, sensitivity and the complete report. Your tier moves from Deposit paid — study to Paid in full; nothing to re-request.