We’ve all heard the expression that the three most important factors when dealing with real estate are:
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Location
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Location
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Location
There’s a lot of truth to that statement. Buy a beautiful house in a really bad neighborhood, and you might be in trouble. There are certain places where people want to live, and there are places they don’t.
Your job as a real estate investor is to find the hot neighborhoods or the up-and-coming neighborhoods... then start mining them for great deals – your ‘treasure.’
How do you find these great neighborhoods? The traditional methods have always involved:
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Driving around various areas to see the condition of houses.
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Talking to local people.
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Researching school districts.
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Talking to Realtors about what is selling.
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Calling the local police department to learn about crime in the area.
There were various other people to talk to as well…
But all of those forms of research involve what people in the spy business call ‘Human Intelligence’ – learning what is going on from being on the ground and talking to locals.
Trouble is that some of that ‘Humint’ can be skewed by personal opinions. It also takes a lot of time. Talk to a bad Realtor for example and they might tell you the area market is really bad – even though his competition is tearing it up. Or, one parent might not like the school district because their kid just got some bad grades. The bad grades may have come though because the school has high standards.
One thing that doesn’t lie is data. When you can look at a big spreadsheet of properties that have sold, you can quickly tell which neighborhoods are ‘hot.’
If you’re a flipper, you might want to see what areas have the most retail buyers and what they are paying.
Landlord? How about data on properties with rents in the area.
How about wholesaling? Wouldn’t you want to know where the cash buyers are buying?
A Picture is Worth 1000 Words
Just looking at a spreadsheet can be overwhelming. Sure you can see certain towns around a city that are selling well or certain zip codes thathave more crime, but it doesn’t give you the true picture.
Fortunately we have found a site that does give you a true picture: Batch Geo. Batch Geo is all about maps. It can take the data you have in a spreadsheet and put all the information into a map for you. Then you have a great picture of where homes or other real estate are selling.
When I say Batch Geo is simple, I mean simple. Either drag and drop or copy your spreadsheet data into the Batch Geo website, and hit ‘Map Now.’ Batch Geo does the rest. 
Your spreadsheet should look something like the Batch Geo Excel template, which you can download from their website (see the arrow pointing to the link in the graphic above). Make sure each row has a header or title, so Batch Geo can recognize it.
You can also ‘Validate and Set Options’ with your map. Just click on the tab shown next to ‘Map Now’ and you will see this:
Here is where you can make sure your column headers match up to what Batch Geo is looking for to map your properties.
One important drop down menu is the ‘Group/Thematic Value’ list…
Say you want to separate the ‘sold’ houses in your neighborhood into ‘Bought with Cash’ or ‘Financed.’ You would have a column called ‘Group’ in your spreadsheet that would designate each address as one of the two categories. Then make sure the ‘Group/Thematic Value’ drop down shows ‘Group’ and hit ‘Make Map.’
After Batch Geo compiles the data, the website will produce a google map that looks like this:
Notice that the markers are color-coded according to the groups you set. In our example above, it would be ‘Bought with Cash’ or ‘Financed.’ As it says in the top of the picture, you can also drag the markers around if the program got the addresses wrong (or you just don’t believe the data, hopefully not).
Even More Feature Awesomeness
Don’t think you should just put in addresses and maybe a few group names... oh no… definitely don’t stop there…
You can add more columns to the spreadsheet such as ‘Bedrooms’, ‘Baths,’ ‘Days on Market,’ etc. Then when you create the map and click on any marker in it, all of your spreadsheet information about the property will be displayed.
Once you have created your map, you can choose to save it. Batch Geo will ask you what you want to name it, a brief description, and an email address. They use the email address to send you:
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A link to the map.
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A link to edit the map.
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The code to embed the map on your website.
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A link to their support if you have questions.
You can also just copy spreadsheets from any website and paste them into Batch Geo. This may be helpful if your real estate investing club has a webpage with a list of properties other investors are selling.
There is also a ‘Pro’ version of Batch Geo that offers these extra features:
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10x Faster Geocoding (nice for large lists)
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Streetview integration (you can see pictures of the houses)
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Hi-Resolution and printing
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Password protected maps
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PDF support
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Larger datasets
These features seem nice for a larger company to use such as a real estate brokerage showing its listings on its website. We found the free version works just fine for individual investors – not to mention we didn’t want to pay the $99/month price tag.
Batch Geo is a great website that can translate a list of ugly data into a beautiful map, for free. Check out this introductory video that explains more about this awesome site.
Use Data – Use data to determine where to set priorities, allocate resources and guide your real estate investing decisions. Don’t just rely on the words and advice of others. Data doesn’t have prejudices or biases like people do.
Learn to Manipulate Data –Knowing how to use spreadsheet programs such as Excel can really help you find important nuggets of information that others may have missed. Batch Geo is a great way to make data usable.
Don’t Forget the Human Side – Looking at data is great, but people buy houses. Computers don’t. Learn what people are looking for in your area, what amenities in a house are selling, what are the latest styles, colors, etc. Then cater to their tastes.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.