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Let Your "Niche" Find You

By
Real Estate Agent with ERA Nicholas Real Estate

Being REALTORS® for less than 2 years, we hardly feel like we should be giving advice in the real estate market, but being new in an industry can make you crave information while trying to find your way.

After trying to find our "niche" in the real estate industry, we discovered that our "niche" found us.

During our first year as REALTORS®, we realized that our other interests, such as photography and graphic design, were very useful in real estate. We saw that we could take flattering photos of our listings and make quality custom flyers. That lead us to believe that our "niche" would be with sellers- offering better photos, nicer flyers, more web presence, etc.

After a very busy year without actually pursuing the sellers and listings we intended to pursue, we realized our "niche" had actually found us and it is with out-of-town buyers.

We live in a military town, so we continuously have pilots moving to Enid for Vance AFB. We started helping military families look for homes in Enid long-distance by taking video clips of houses, giving them a video "walk-through" of the homes they were interested in. Videos give a much more realistic view of the homes and a feel for the layout that still photos just can't communicate.

We attach these videos of homes to the buyer's very own web page,along with MLS links to homes, information brochures and even the contract if they decide to do the transaction from a distance. The personal web pages also allow the buyers to show their prospective homes to family and friends in other locations and keep the history of their home search together in one convenient location.

We have been told by our buyers that this service is invaluable and they are recommending us like crazy to the other military families moving to Enid. Maybe these ideas will help other REALTORS® with long-distance shoppers or help them get an edge in their community.

We just needed to stop trying to find our niche and it found us!

Comments (4)

Cynthia Sloop
Community Association Manager - Indianapolis, IN
Ty and Kelly that's a great story!  Thanks for sharing it with all of us.  What a great service you offer and using your talents to boot.
Feb 03, 2007 10:10 AM
Blanca Cholewczynski
U - Oak Brook, IL
XCO

Welcome to Active Rain!

You will love this site!  Welcome Wagon - A newbie manual to Active Rain

Feb 05, 2007 01:26 AM
Ty and Kelly Tompkins
ERA Nicholas Real Estate - Enid, OK

Thank you, Cynthia and Blanca!

I already do love this site - it's addictive with so much information.

Feb 05, 2007 06:39 AM
Anonymous
Charley

As a licensed home inspector for the State of Oklahoma I have had the priviledge of working with Ty and Kelly and would say their professionalism is topped by no other and I have worked with Real Estate agents all across the State. They truely have their clients best intrest at heart

Oct 31, 2009 02:20 AM
#4