How to Define Your Niche Market (And How It Could Help Your Business)

Realtors® are skilled at working with all types of clients and transactions, but defining your niche market can help transform your business in an ever-changing market. Realtor® and Triple Play 2023 speaker Brandon Johnson shares his advice for defining your niche and how doing so can help you and your real estate business thrive.

What is a niche market?

A niche market includes clients whom Realtors® are most interested in and most enjoy working with. This could be anyone from rural homebuyers interested in farms to luxury cabin seekers. As the name suggests, niche markets include unique or less common types of clients and transactions that may be better served by a Realtor® with a certain interest or skill in that market area.

How does defining and focusing on your niche market help your real estate business?

Johnson believes finding a niche market can help advance Realtors® on both career and personal levels. While not everyone may want to define their niche, those who do can better serve their clients while feeling more personally fulfilled by their careers.

“It’s not wrong if someone wants to be a multi-demographic agent,” he says. “I just found that when an agent becomes hyper-focused on who they want to serve that fills their cup, not only does the client have a better experience, but the agent has a better quality of life and better quality of business.”

Does everyone have a niche market they can fit into?

“I think you can live in a community of 5,000 people and still have a niche,” Johnson says, offering an example of how he believes any Realtor® can find a niche they fit into.

“Real estate is a universal desire, but it’s intrinsically a unique product offering customized to individuals in the season of life that they’re in,” he adds. He notes that by understanding clients and their unique needs and desires, Realtors® can learn more about client demographics, extend their service areas and find their niche market.

How can Realtors® find and define their niche?

“Start by asking yourself, ‘Are there certain people I love working with? What, or who, was my favorite transaction? What about my least favorite?’” Johnson advises. By understanding what kinds of transactions or clients you’ve enjoyed most (or enjoyed least), you can get a better sense of what your niche market may be.

Oftentimes, niche markets find Realtors® instead of the other way around. Johnson notes that Realtors® attract people they know, people they like and people who trust them. As they work with more clients and complete more transactions, they frequently attract more of the types of business that they excel at and care about.

When defining a niche market, he encourages Realtors® to explore not just their interests, but also their values. He compares Realtors® to larger companies and organizations—they have values that define and guide their businesses, so why shouldn’t Realtors® do the same?

Reflecting on past experiences, interests and personal values can help Realtors® decide who they most want to serve, thus building stronger client relationships, improving quality of business and allowing for more fulfillment in their careers and in their lives.