The market for real estate information analysis is in its infancy. Traditionally, the real estate model has been broker-centric. The local real estate broker controls much of the localized information about a property becoming a necessary middle man for projects ranging from buying a house to selling a shopping center. With the advent of the Internet and its efficient method for disseminating information, more and more real estate information has become publicly available. This information, however, is spread out in multiple formats on various websites, databases, and other sources. This makes it very difficult, time consuming and expensive to compile sufficient information to make real estate purchase decisions. Real estate opportunities are often missed because of the time it takes to get actionable information on a site.
Traditionally, real estate brokers and site selectors find potential commercial real estate sites for developers and tenants. One conventional method used by site selectors to find potential sites in a new area involves driving around the area and noting the location and quality of the different neighborhoods, and the location and quality of the existing commercial corridors. Thus the site selector will try to derive a potential store location's quality based on his observed quality of the surrounding area. The significant amount of time required to become familiar with an area is a reason why many developers and tenants turn to local real estate brokers for help. Another conventional method used by site selectors is to mark locations of existing retail stores on a map. This conventional method helps the site selector determine how far away a potential site is located relative to an existing retail store. One known approach used by commercial real estate site selectors makes use of paper maps with stickers to indicate store locations. Another known approach is to disseminate copies of books with hand marked store locations.
Once a developer or tenant's site selector finds a potential site, a conventional method involves ordering a demographic report from an in-house specialty team or outside consultant service. The demographic data for the potential site is then compared to a tenant's stated demographic requirements to determine demographic viability of a site. Additionally, tenants will often state how close they are willing to place stores together. This stated distance is compared to the distance the site selector marked for the site on his paper map to the known store locations. If the demographics and closest store distance meet the stated requirements for a particular retailer, then the developer will often move forward with plans to acquire and present the site to a tenant for development. These conventional methods must be repeated for each potential site, creating significant time and cost inefficiencies.
The problem with this conventional method of determining site viability is that there is a significant information and time gap between the site selector's first observation of a site and the developer's acquisition decision.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need to overcome the limitations of the conventional methods for finding site locations and determining site viability. There is a need to efficiently inform a site selector of the quality and location of the neighborhoods and commercial corridors without the site selector having to drive throughout the area or depend on a local broker. There is a further need to inform the site selector of a retailer's demographic and closest store distance requirements in a localized region, not just a generalized stated requirement. There is a further need to inform the site selector at the time of first observation whether the site's demographics and location to the nearest existing retail store meet the requirements of a particular retailer in a particular region. There is a further need to create a standard unified model to collect and disseminate site information throughout a commercial development organization to facilitate efficient site acquisition decisions.