Maps are important in battle and business

Ask anyone in the military. They will tell you their lives depend on them.

As a real estate agent, you certainly are not in that type of dire situation, but your livelihood does depend on knowing the terrain of your marketplace.

And you need to be able to capture all the relevant information about your marketplace and present it in a way that is easy for the troops (home buyers and sellers) to understand.

There’s a tool for that – the SpatialMatch real estate map-based search platform.

Probably one of the most famous geo-blunders in military history had to do with the battle in the pass of Thermopylae in ancient Greek times.

The Athenian general Themistocles knew his terrain well. He used mapping intelligence to hold back a massive army for seven days of 300,000 Persians who were intent on conquering all of Greece.

During two full days of battle, a small force led by King Leonidas I of Sparta blocked the only road by which the massive army could pass. He did it with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians (weren’t they all actors in the movie?) and 40 Thebans.

The terrain of your marketplace is critical as well. As a real estate agent or broker you would do well to know every nook and cranny.

There are some stores that are better than others, some schools with a lower student-teacher ratio than others, some roads that are less jammed than others.

You’ve got your train stations, your bus routes, and your bicycle paths.

There are food stores and then there are Wal-Mart Supercenters or Costcos.

There are pizza restaurants like Joey’s Pizzeria and then there are Italian restaurants like Sol de Bruschetta Magnifico.

There are parks where kids can skate and play and there are hazardous areas where no kid should play.

There are major roads that are congested every day and there are shortcuts that are a breeze

There’s higher taxes just on the other side of the county boundary and there a tax breaks for renovating historical properties in other areas.

With the SpatialMatch tool, and it’s enormous database of local businesses, schools, parks, hospitals, etc., you can point all these areas out to a prospective home buyer.

Right alongside any property listed on MLS as an integrated IDX pulls in the latest listings in real time.

With SpatialMatch, you can show prospects which locations are favorable for their needs and which ones are not. Something they will appreciate.

If you ever saw the commercials for the movie “300” based on that famous battle, you probably know the importance of geography when they filmed the movie.

While most of it was done on a soundstage with a blue background, to get in the shape those guys were in, there had to be a L.A. Fitness nearby because those guys were ripped!

See. Geography is still important centuries after a famous battle.

For more information on how you can be the commander of your local terrain with the SpatialMatch real estate map search tool, click here.