Market analysis
A metro, county or submarket, read for opportunity and trend, and compared against its peers.
What it weighs most
Economic vitality
30% of the score. The rest is on this page.
01 / The problem
Every market looks good in isolation. Growth is a number until you see the five metros next to it, and then it is a decision.
02 / The decisions it serves
Not a report. A decision somebody has to sign.
Each of these is a question your team already asks, and currently answers with a spreadsheet, a phone call and a fortnight.
Is this market actually growing
Five years back and five years forward, at submarket rather than metro scale.
How does it compare to its peers
Against five comparable metros, because a number with nothing beside it is trivia.
How fragile is it
A market leaning on one employer or one industry is fragile, whatever the headline says.
03 / What it asks you first
It would rather ask than assume.
The answer changes completely depending on these, so it will not guess at them in order to look fast.
-
What industry are you evaluating this market for?
-
Are you comparing specific markets, or asking us to recommend some?
04 / The method, in the open
Here is exactly what it weighs. Argue with it.
Most tools will not show you this, because most tools do not have it. These are the weights the playbook really uses.
Economic vitality
Population dynamics
Market maturity
Risk profile
05 / It is willing to say no
It does not hand you numbers. It gives you a verdict.
An assistant that only ever agrees with you is a mirror, not an analyst. This one holds a line, names the thing that kills the deal, and will tell you to walk away from a site you already like.
The thresholds it holds you to
-
Five peer metros to compare against, because a number with nothing beside it is not an insight.
-
A five-year trend and a five-year forecast, at submarket or postcode granularity.
-
Scores band at 8.0 high opportunity, 6.0 moderate, 4.0 low. Below 4.0 means significant headwinds.
-
A market leaning on one employer or one industry is fragile, and gets marked down for it however good the headline looks.
06 / Why not just ask an AI
A fluent answer and a defensible one are not the same thing.
Every model will answer a location question now, and most of the answers sound right. Ask twice and you get two of them. Ask where the number came from and the room goes quiet.
-
It compares against real peer metros rather than describing your market in flattering isolation.
-
It marks a market down for single-employer dependence, which is the sort of thing a model optimising for a pleasing answer will not volunteer.
-
It works at submarket and postcode level, because the metro average is nobody's trade area.
07 / What it runs on, and what you get
The data underneath
Licensed and authoritative, and named in the output, so the number keeps its source when it travels.
- Esri GeoEnrichment
- Census
- Esri Tapestry
What you walk out with
A scored assessment against every factor above, on the live map, with the method beside it.
The method it used and the vintage of every number travel with it, so it still holds up when somebody asks you why in six months.
How an answer travels08 / It pairs with
Nobody makes one decision in isolation. Most teams run this alongside two or three of these.
Run Market analysis on something you already decided. See if it agrees with you.
The honest test of a method is whether it reaches the conclusion your best analyst already reached, and tells you plainly when it does not.
Twenty minutes, and you can argue with the weights.