This is a great point, and we actually had a similar discussion in the second week of class (so maybe blog post coming?) The issue was around trying to be data driven but without the data. My response was very much similar to yours - can you use Census data to suggest things about a property? There will likely be error, so you need to be careful about how you tell the story and deliver the information, but it is better than nothing. The other thing I said is that in some cases, it may be totally fine not to be data driven if the data is not available. You likely have access to other types of information - interviews, etc, that can help for the time being and maybe it isn't an appropriate project for the data team.