Daily Real Estate News  |  March 6, 2008  |   Unusual Real Estate Niches
The housing downturn has prompted many real estate professionals to specialize in a particular niche to gain a competitive edge. Practitioners now specialize in particular neighborhoods or architectural styles, remodeling, rezoning, and catering to single women, among other categories.

Some of these specialized markets appear to be a little over the top, such as Florida agent Jackie Youngblood's focus on nudists in the Tampa Bay area. Her catch phrase is "Skip the outfit, wear the lifestyle."

One popular, emerging niche market, however, involves locating dog-friendly housing. Djuna Woods of Menlo Park, Calif.-based Coldwell Banker helps home buyers with dogs find properties with hardwood floors, fenced yards, and other features important to dog owners.

This is especially important when house-hunters are specifically looking for a condo, as these properties often restrict pets but do not necessarily advertise this in their literature.

According to Woods, who also guides sellers on how to prep their home for the market when a dog or other pet is still occupying space in the property, "it's really about understanding your clients and how they live."

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, Carol Lloyd (03/02/08)

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