Real Estate Walkthrough

Confidently identify, compare, and justify real estate investments

Overview

The Real Estate Walkthrough helps real estate and property strategy teams use Almanac to identify expansion opportunities, compare markets consistently, and make defensible investment decisions.

It guides you through how to use Markets, Trade Areas, and Smart Benchmarks to assess retail potential — whether you’re evaluating a new site, reviewing a renewal, or comparing portfolio options.

Goal: Build confidence in where to invest, renew, or exit — using market demand, retail context, and comparative benchmarks.

Step 1: Prioritize Markets Using Consistent Demand Signals

Start in the Markets Section to assess where real consumer demand is strongest. This section provides standard metrics — Visits, Trips, and Spend — allowing you to compare markets and retail corridors on the same basis.

How to explore it:

Open the Markets Section from the main navigation.
Use the search bar to find and select a market or corridor (e.g., Downtown Dallas or Garden State Plaza).
Select a time period that aligns with your development pipeline.
Switch between tabs to view:
- Market Visits: Total visitation across the market area.
- Market Trips: Frequency and cross-shopping behavior.
- Market Spend: Local spend activity by category.

Example:
If Market Visits and Market Spend are both trending upward, but your brand’s footprint in that market is minimal, it may be a strong expansion candidate.

Outcome: Identify top-performing markets for new investment or deeper analysis — supported by standardized demand signals rather than intuition.

Step 2: Evaluate Potential Sites Using Trade Areas and Retail Clusters

Once you’ve identified a market of interest, use Trade Areas and Retail Clusters to evaluate specific sites or centers within that market.

The Trade Areas Map Layer defines the real-world catchment of each site based on visitor behavior, while Retail Clusters provide standardized groupings of nearby retail locations for fair comparison.

How to explore it:

Open the Trade Areas layer within the Map Section.
Select a site or retail cluster to view its trade area boundaries.
Review nearby competitor and complementary retailers for context.
Compare multiple clusters side-by-side to assess demand and accessibility.

Example:
Two potential sites may appear similar in rent and size, but one may draw from a trade area with 20% higher visit frequency or 15% greater spending per trip — making it a more defensible choice.

Outcome: Confidently compare mall-based and non-mall sites using consistent market and catchment definitions.

Step 3: Benchmark Store or Site Performance

For markets where you already operate, use Smart Benchmarks to understand whether performance reflects store execution or underlying market conditions.

Benchmarks provide a fair, local comparison — automatically selecting relevant competitors to contextualize your results.

How to create and use a Smart Benchmark:

Open the Benchmark Drawer in Almanac.
Click Create Smart Benchmark.
Choose competitor locations that reflect your store type or positioning.
Review visit trends over time, comparing your site to the local benchmark average.

Example:
If your site’s visits are down 5% but the benchmark market fell 8%, your store is actually outperforming local peers — suggesting the market itself, not execution, is the main driver.

Outcome: Support renewal, relocation, or exit decisions with objective evidence that leadership can trust.

Step 4: Build and Present an Investment Story

Once you’ve identified strong markets, evaluated sites, and benchmarked existing performance, you can compile your findings to support investment decisions.

Recommended exports:

Market Summary Report — Shows top-performing markets based on Visits, Trips, and Spend.
Trade Area Comparison — Visualizes site catchments and overlapping demand.
Benchmark Report — Highlights site performance versus market peers.

Next Step: Share reports in investment committee decks or portfolio reviews to illustrate why certain markets or sites outperform others.

Key Takeaways

Use Markets to identify where consumer demand is growing.
Use Trade Areas & Retail Clusters to compare potential sites consistently.
Use Smart Benchmarks to separate market vs. store performance.
Back decisions with consistent metrics to strengthen leadership confidence.

Almanac enables real estate teams to move from intuition to evidence — comparing opportunities on a single, credible retail lens.