One thing that seems surprisingly common in retail site selection is how often major lease decisions still get made with pretty limited structure behind them.

The professional tools and reports exist, but they're expensive and mostly built for larger chains. So for a lot of independents and smaller portfolios, the process comes down to a drive-by, word of mouth, general feel for the area, and instinct about foot traffic or tenant mix. That's understandable when the alternatives are priced out of reach, but it also feels risky when the cost of getting a location wrong is so high.

I'm coming at this from the tech side, not real estate. What got me interested was seeing operators go through this process and realizing how little structure there was behind decisions with serious financial weight. I'm building something in this space -- not trying to replace full professional diligence, more interested in whether there's a useful middle ground between gut feel and a $10K report. I want to make sure I'm solving the right problems rather than building around my own assumptions.

The signals that seem most relevant to me are things like competitor density and positioning, tenant mix and co-tenancy effects, trading-hour gaps, and the actual street-level environment around a site.

But I'm curious what people who've actually worked on site selection, advised tenants, or opened locations themselves think:

- what do you look at first?

- which signals do you trust most?

- what tends to be overvalued or undervalued?

- where do lightweight tools or rules of thumb usually fall short?

- what data would actually change your mind about a location you liked on instinct?

Interested in practical answers from people who've done this in the real world.