With abundant data, we’re able to create very interesting maps

With the advances in “big data” technology and the ability to crunch incredible amounts of information, all of a sudden an ancient technology is hot again.

The technology we’re talking about is a map.

A tool that was once rolled out on ancient parchment scrolls, depicting the ends of the earth and all the scary sea monsters and other creatures that resided there.

Now, with high-speed data processing, maps are cool again. You can literally create a map about anything.

How’s this subject for example – a poll of Americans that indicates which states were “the drunkest, the hottest and had the silliest accents.”

Yep. There’s a map for that.

On a more serious note, there are also maps on “How Climate Change Will Affect the World” and there’s even a version on how climate change will affect your neighborhood.

Tech blogger Jaymi Heimbuch said it well: “They (maps) make everything a little bit better.”

“They have the capacity to turn confusing, nebulous and unimaginable information into visual masterpieces of understanding.”

She added, “And when we can see the information, we’re more likely to do something useful with it.”

That’s what’s happening today with cartography – the science of map making. It’s no longer just a state highway map tucked in your glove compartment. Maps are hip again.

The same advances in geo-spatial platforms are available in real estate as well. Home Junction Inc. has created a map-based real estate platform that integrates MLS listings with an enormous neighborhood data widget and pulls it all into a map.

With this tool, a home buyer can get a better grasp of no only what type of home they are buying but just as importantly, where they are buying.

SpatialMatch can pull up all the relevant information about a property – square footage, number of rooms, etc.

It can then pull in all relevant data on related items such as schools. There it can display school size, student/teacher ratios, etc

Finally, since it is map-based, the widget can display the location of the school on the map in proximity to the home under consideration.

Same goes for personal amenities such as gyms, parks, golf courses, restaurants, etc.

Now, when someone is looking for a house, a very stressful event in a person’s life, you can believe when they see all this information laid out before them, it truly is a “visual masterpiece of understanding.”

Get with it. Don’t just hand out paper maps that the Realtor in your office handed out forty years ago.

Maps have come a long way.

Embed the SpatialMatch real estate tool into every aspect of your website. Create a picture in the buyer’s mind (and when you market to sellers) that when it comes to useful hyper-local geo-spatial data, you got it covered.

To read about the peculiarities of what people think of each state with supporting maps, go here.

And here is the link for the maps illustrating the effects of climate change worldwide.