OK, all you non-believers out there! There is yet more evidence that not only does selecting a niche market increase your success, but that the more extreme you go with it, the better off you are. I have been preaching this for years, yet there is a stubborn majority out there that refuses to listen. Or, there’s the even more guilty segment who do listen and fundamentally agree, but keep putting the decision off saying they are too busy to make changes now and other lame excuses.
My Niche Back Up Singer
Well, I’m tired of it - my voice is hoarse and my fingers numb from repetition. So, here ya go… read this article recently posted on Inman News by Lai Saetern: Real Estate Niches Stretch from Nudists to Celebs and the follow up, Real Estate Jobs with Dogs and Logs . Lai’s articles escort us to specialty niches in every corner of the country, ranging from nudists to celebrities to military to dogs (puts a new meaning on the 
phrase “in the dog-house”, but hey - everyone needs a place to call home, right?). The point of the article is to describe the extraordinary successes the agents/brokers are enjoying in these highly specialized and somewhat unusual markets. Now, why would that be?
Oh, and by the way, two of the featured agents in these articles are students of mine. OK, that’s enough of a rest for me, back on my soapbox for my favorite subject…
REAL Men (and Women) DO Eat Quiche - AND Have a Niche
One of the number one reasons I hear people quip as a counter argument is “Well, that may work for some people, in a perfect world. It would never work in my area.” And another, “But if I limit my market, I’ll exclude so many people - think of all the business I’ll lose!”
Well firstly, the agents in these articles are REAL people operating under the same market conditions you are, not fictional fairytale characters in a in some distant land once upon a time (though if you think about it, some of those characters would make downright horrific clients!). And if it works in every region from Florida to New York to Texas to California to Maine, as Lai’s articles show it most certainly does, what makes you so special (or not?) that it won’t work in your neck of the woods?
And speaking of necks of woods, as you know, I travel all over the place giving my schpiel, and I have discovered that over 98% of audiences (representing over 10,000 agents per year) don’t niche! This leaves a huge opportunity open for those who do to eliminate most of the competition out there. Besides, you don’t actually have to select just one niche to specialize in! If you are reluctant to, in your perspective, “limit yourself”, you can specialize in more than one niche - as long as you have separate sites for each target market.
Finally, by wrapping a targeted service brand around a niche provides you with a handy dandy automatic, and lucrative, exit strategy when you are ready to move on.
So, please, do us all a favor, and stop with the lame excuses. Stand up with the really successful agents and get yourself a niche!
