Heggen Research Institute
Half of American cities have a measurable housing shortage.
Most don't have the data to do anything about it.
Cities
Cities know they need housing. But knowing isn't enough to act.
They hear it from employers, residents, and council members. But without quantified demand backed by federal data — ZIP-code-level targeting, workforce rent analysis, ready sites with committed incentives — knowing is just waiting.
Developers
The opportunity is real. Getting there takes too long.
The demand is there. The rents pencil. But getting from opportunity to groundbreaking takes 18–36 months and costs a fortune in soft dollars. No reliable comps for small markets. No aggregated incentive data. No way to know if the city is actually ready.
Banks
The capital exists. The evidence doesn't.
Banks have the capital to make it happen. But deploying it without reliable data creates real exposure — wrong product, wrong site, wrong developer, undocumented impact. The lending opportunity is real, but it requires the right evidence to deploy capital responsibly.
Data Sources
Every number traces to federal data your team already trusts.
The Research
Someone already did the research.
Heggen Research Institute maintains the largest independent database of workforce housing market intelligence for rural and small-city America. Every data point is sourced from federal databases. Every analysis is built to withstand examiner scrutiny.
The question is no longer whether the demand exists. It is whether we will build for it.