What Is Market Intelligence?

Sources can include public business websites, industry publications, regulatory filings, interviews, surveys, economic statistics and licensed datasets. Different sources establish different things. A price page can establish an advertised price at an observation date. Sales records or a suitable transaction dataset are needed to establish realized prices or sales volumes.

No single source supplies a complete market view. Record its scope, date and missing information before interpreting the result.

Market research is a way of investigating defined questions through methods such as interviews, surveys or secondary-data analysis. It can be one-off or repeated. Market intelligence brings relevant evidence into an ongoing decision process; it does not automatically predict where a market will go.

Internal business intelligence analyzes a business’s own operational records. Customer and transaction analytics examine behavior or transactions using appropriate data. Intelligence from public sources instead examines what businesses make publicly observable. These disciplines can inform one another, but their evidence is not interchangeable.

In Orbit’s September 2026 North Houston New Home Market Scan, 13 of 24 builders in the comparable pricing cohort had observed advertised starting pricing below $300,000. The full research cohort contained 25 builder companies; custom or Build-on-Your-Lot pricing was separated where comparability differed.

This is a dated description of advertised pricing in the defined North Houston market, not a measure of completed sales or consumer demand. Advertised figures may exclude lot premiums, options, fees, taxes and upgrades.

A snapshot describes what was observed during a research window. A trend requires repeated, comparable observations and enough evidence to distinguish movement from changes in sources, coverage or classification. Comparing unrelated cohorts or unlike price definitions does not establish direction.

Orbit’s published Market Scans demonstrate research from public business sources within defined cohorts. Its public-source observation model works with evidence such as services, prices, offers, positioning and access pathways. This does not establish universal live-market coverage, complete market size, consumer demand or access to private behavioral data.

Competitor monitoring is one application. Orbit’s broader model considers the relationship between the observed business and your business: the same price signal may raise a different question about a supplier than about a rival. The observation remains the fact; its possible implication depends on context.

For practical reading paths and published studies, use the market-intelligence hub. For how the evidence is bounded, read Orbit’s methodology.