Coverage and Freshness: How Many Places Are Scored and How Often

The scale of coverage

The screen scores a large set of ZIP codes across the country, rolls them up into ranked counties and also covers state-level jurisdictions. The live counts appear on the page and are refreshed with each snapshot. Coverage depends on data availability: places with few listings or sparse records may be scored on thinner evidence, and some places may not be scored at all. Because coverage tracks the data, it can shift between rebuilds as feeds add or lose areas, and the counts on the page are the authoritative figures for any given day.

The hourly and daily rhythm

Listing snapshots run every hour, capturing price cuts, short-sale flags and activity as they change. Once a day, the rankings are rebuilt from the latest inputs, so tables such as Top 100 Investment ZIPs and Top 25 Investment Counties reflect fresh data. Between rebuilds, the headline gauges can update as new snapshots arrive. A year-old rebuild of the same table would show different ordering simply because inputs would have changed, which is an everyday reminder that rankings are snapshots of a moving picture.

Slow inputs and their dates

Mortgage performance runs about ten months behind, bank condition follows a quarterly cycle, and Census and price indexes publish on their own calendars. Each row on the page shows its date. A reading that looks like today may include an input from months ago, which is why checking dates is part of reading any table here. A good habit is to scan the date column before the score column, and to ask for each table which of its inputs is the oldest, because that one sets the real freshness of the whole reading.

Why the live series is short

The live series begins on 29 May 2026, and years before that date are reconstructed from archived inputs. Reconstruction lets the page show 25-year overlays and a backtest, but it is a rebuild rather than a record. As the live series lengthens, more of the history will rest on data captured at the time, though the earlier portion will stay reconstructed. Readers who want to judge the quality of a number can check the span of the backtest, the count of testable years and the hit rate, all of which appear together on the page for easy comparison.

Reading freshness sensibly

Fast data tells you about now and slow data tells you about the background, so use them together. The scores are rule-based, the backtest is weak and nothing here is advice. If a particular reading matters to a decision, note its date, check whether anything has changed and confirm with local sources that can speak to this week rather than last quarter. Keeping a simple log of what you read and when lets you compare later visits against your own notes, which is a more reliable record than memory of a table that rebuilds daily.

The latest reading

As of October 20, 2026, the screen scores 33,775 ZIP codes, ranks 3,221 counties and covers 52 state-level jurisdictions.

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