How Real Estate Location Intelligence Tools Can Help Your Business

“Location, Location, Location” ~ Every Real Estate Agent Ever

I guess it is pretty safe to say that location is an important factor in real estate.  One may even go as far as to say the most important factor when it comes to buying and selling a house, although Price will give it a good run.

When buyers are doing their research for a new home they will be looking at the location of the home as much as the price and features.

The neighborhood, the school district, how close it is to their favorite stores, how much crime, and of course how much traffic to get to work.

This is where Real Estate Location Intelligence Tools can be handy.
 

What is Location Intelligence

 
Basically it is taking Business Data (BI) and layering it over a Map (GIS).

One of the first and most recognizable forms of this is when Google or Maze took traffic data and layered it over their navigation maps.  Traffic data is great, and navigation is awesome, but being able to see where traffic is bad in relation to where you are going is amazing.

Location intelligence

Location intelligence (LI) is a business intelligence (BI) tool capability that relates geographic contexts to business data. Like BI, location intelligence software is designed to turn data into insight for a host of business purposes. Such tools draw on a variety of data sources, such as geographic information systems (GIS), aerial maps, demographic information and, in some cases, an organization’s own databases. (TechTarget)

For real estate this means layering the information that are important to home buyers over the locations that are of interest.

For Example:

If you have a Map Search on your real estate website that would be a Real Estate Location Intelligence Tool.

You have Business Data (Homes For Sale) layered over a map.

How Location Intelligence Can Help Your Real Estate Business

 
OK, let’s get to the part you care about, how does this help you.

I will suggest that it will help you in 2 ways:

1. Creating a Better User Experience for Your Website Visitors
2. Touring Less Homes With Your Buyers

Adding these tools can help your real estate business both online and offline.

Real Estate Location Intelligence Tools

Walkscore

 
This tool gives each location a score from 0 to 100 that represents how easy it is to walk to local business.  It measures Restaurants, Coffee shops, Bars, Groceries, Parks, Schools, and more.  It also tells you how good a locations transit system is.  We add this tool to every website we build.

Google My Maps

 
With this tool, you have the ability to really show your niche neighborhood. You can set up a ‘Pin Cluster’ of gated communities like the one you see below. You can also set you map up so there is a nice image! Lastly, you can add your own custom pins (here I added a sun instead of the standard pin icon) and a link to send folks directly to the home search.

Area Vibe

 
This tool calculates what they call a Livability Score.  They use dozens of characteristics in 7 different categories including nearby amenities, cost of living, crime rates, education, employment, housing and weather.  This gives a score of 1 to 100 to grade how nice a location is to live.

Thinglink

 
Use ThingLink to create interactive news photography, maps, posters, family albums, infographics, and shoppable product catalogs in minutes! You can keep track of how people interact with your content as it spreads across the web.

Trulia Local

 
This one is my favorite display but you can not add this to your WordPress website, other than link to it.

It displays housing market trends including; Median Sales Price, Price Per Square Ft, and Median Rent Per Month.  Crime including; Counts of Theft, Counts of Assault, and Counts of Vandalism.  Elementary, Middle and High School ratings.  Demographics including; Single residents, Home owners, Median age, Median household income, and College educated.  And Commute times.

We do not suggest that you link to it and this will leak your traffic.  Why add it?  Because it is an amazing example.

Street Advisor

 
This tool calculates a score from 0 to 10 based on reviews from people who live in the area.  They rank the neighborhoods, tell you the best streets to live on and what a location is good for and not so good for.

Great Schools

 
This tool allows you to assess the academic performance of a school, view local school reviews, and map schools by address, zip code or city.  This tool is included in every website we build.

Neighborhood Scout

 
This tool shows neighborhood crime statistics exclusive data, maps & graphs.  Public school quality ratings.  Neighborhood info, trends taxes, costs & demographics.  Real estate appreciation rates for every neighborhood.  This one will cost ya.

IDX

This tool allows you to take all the listings on your local MLS and put them on your website like you are brokerage.  The map search pages show all listings available in a location.  When we build a website we include this tool.

There are many other Location Intelligence tools that do some pretty cool stuff if you want to pay $100 or more a month.

Can you imagine that adding any or all of these tools to the local pages of your Real Estate website would keep your visitors engaged longer?

Can you imagine that adding any or all of these tools to your site would help your buyers narrow in on listings by weeding out locations that do not match their needs?

Summary

 
Most of us use Location Intelligence in one way or anther on a regular basis.  Traffic data overlay on your smart phone is probably the most common.

We all know that location is a huge factor when it comes to doing business.  Where to live, where to work, where to go to school.  Location Intelligent tools will only continue to grow in popularity and get more advanced in the data that they can provide.

Take the time now to incorporate them onto your real estate website.