Trick or Trulia
Halloween’s always been one of my favorite holidays. None of the distracting religious overtones associated with holidays like Christmas or Yom Kippur; none of the inevitable pangs of inadequacy inspired by Valentine’s Day; none of the blatant corporate consumerism behind travesties such as Grandparents Day (first Sunday after Labor Day) and National Answer Your Cat’s Question Day (January 22). Just candy, costumery, jack-’o'-lanterns and petty vandalism.
Now, I’m too old to go out trick-or-treating — not too old in spirit but, to make a long story short, too old according to my neighbors and the San Francisco Court of Appeals. But I wish I was a kid again, because I realized the other day that Trulia could be a great tool for the enterprising trick-or-treater who wants to maximize his haul. Ideally our site would have “sweet maps” indicating the candy quality for each neighborhood — red for king-size Butterfingers, gray for apples with razor blades inside, and so on — but the Census Bureau refuses to release that data. The next best thing is our heat maps, which can serve as a decent proxy for this type of information.
Check out a heat map page like this one of San Francisco. The default map, showing average listing price, is a great starting point. Now, the key to a successful Halloween is to target neighborhoods with a lot of rich people living close together. Your eye may be drawn to the cluster of reddish neighborhoods in the middle-west of the city, but these neighborhoods are probably full of private drives and sprawling estates that take forever to walk between.
Instead, try the hot spot on the northern end: the Marina, Pac Heights, Russian Hill and Cow Hollow. Here we have listing prices comfortably in the seven figures and neatly gridded streets. Plus, the number of properties for sale and traffic rankings tell us that these are active markets — full of households looking to liquidate their sweets assets. Trust me, it’ll be like taking candy from a baby. A very wealthy baby.
How about Denver? I’ve never actually been to the city, but if I found myself there on Halloween night I would probably start my mission in Cherry Creek, which is surrounded on all sides by similarly ritzy areas. Even if I go dizzy from a sugar overdose and stumble into some other neighborhood, I’m almost guaranteed to remain in Denver’s sweet spot.
And then there’s Philly. The area around Center City looks promising, but if you click on some of these neighborhoods you’ll discover that most of the properties are condos and apartments. If my mom taught me one thing, it’s that condos and apartments give out crappy Halloween candy. Trick-or-treating here would be like going to Outback and ordering a salad — no one’s going to stop you, but… why? Better to head north and pillage the homes of Chestnut Hill.
By the way, no one has claimed the marker man costumes for Halloween night yet. If last Halloween left you craving a costume with a little more of that Silicon Valley je ne sais quoi, send us an email and maybe we’ll let you borrow it.
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Don said,
October 28, 2006 @ 10:14 am
If you are looking for a haunted house to visit this weekend go to http://www.hauntedhouses.com - the list of avilable houses is much longer than one would expect. I got this tip from a post on http://www.realblogging.com
max said,
November 20, 2006 @ 11:17 am
Wow, that is a pretty cool feature! I also noticed that you guys can outline city borders - that’s very helpful as welll. I’m not a realtor and not sure how accurate is the information, but from consumer side and usability point ofg view those are awesome additions to your product. Now, are these options available in the TruliaMaps as well? It would be fantastic if heated maps and average statistical data for neighborhoods and zip codes could be available through your feeds to be able to dynamically display it on real estate related web sites. Great work guys! Trulia rocks!
Louis, company mascot said,
November 20, 2006 @ 1:04 pm
Hi Max — advanced features such as heatmaps and neighborhood statistics are not currently available as part of the TruliaMaps product, but that’s a good idea. I’ll pass your suggestion along to the right people. Thanks for your positive feedback!
Trulia Blog » Heat Maps now available nationwide! said,
January 9, 2007 @ 3:32 pm
[…] Those are just a few ideas, but I’m sure there are other use-cases for Heat Maps as well (feel free to share if you have ideas of your own). Enjoy! del.icio.us this! […]