Times are tough right now and most markets have slowed down a bit, values have gone down in most places, there are foreclosures in your neighborhoods and short sales abound.There is always an upside to every downside.

Niching or specializing will add value and improve your income. One of the most important things to do when you run a business is to focus on your niche now but always have your eye on an open door. To read more about finding your way click here to read my post about open doors.

One of the signals you should look for in your geographical area is what types of markets are somewhat or more so insulated from economic downturns.

The other thing that you need to consider is how much money do you want to make? What is your income goal for next year? What is your NET income goal for next year?

Think about selling less units for more income. The easiest and fastest way to do this is to move into the Luxury home market.

One of the market niches that is somewhat to mostly insulated to economic turndowns, recessions and volatile markets is the Luxury Home Market.

Our main market niche and focus is the luxury home market. I remember when we were with a local Re/Max office before Re/Max had a luxury division. Our broker frowned on us getting high end listings because he was taught that it is all about the number of units. Well,that did not make sense to us. Why sell 10 $150,000 houses when you can sell one 1 Million dollar house was our question!  So we graduated through the ranks of price ranges. Back then a luxury home in our town was $500,000 and over. Our goal was to get the Million dollar listings. That became our focus. I will never forget how our broker laughed at us when we brought in our first million dollar listing, ( a story for another post) and said we would never sell it. We sold it 5 months later. In those days the average time on the market for any listing was about 6 months to 12 months. We had the last laugh.

In fact, in our area many of the luxury homes are sold to buyers who pay all cash so financing is not a deterrent. Credit may be tight, but people buying luxury homes have multiple sources of income and we are finding some are cashing in their stocks and buying luxury homes right now because of the uncertainty as to capital gains so they are selling their stocks now before 2009 so they are taxed on their gains at a lower amount. Then they can put that money into a homestead property in Florida where we also have asset protection and no state income tax.

The luxury hotels in our county are cutting back on employees. The famous Breakers has reduced its' staff by about 200 employees compared to last year according to Paul N Leone who is the President of the Breakers. But they added on a new business right in the hotel. They opened up a Real Estate brokerage that will be catering to the luxury home market.

Some people would wonder why anyone would start a new real estate company in this meltdown and especially here in Florida. The reason is that when guests come to stay at the Breakers they are asking about luxury homes and properties. There is a market there and they are buying. And we aren't talking the cheap luxury either. We are talking multi million dollar properties and clients that don't need financing.

So what is holding you back from entering the luxury home market? Those clients put their pants on one leg at a time just like you do.

Here is a link to some of our luxury home listings. You can do this too.

So how about a new fresh perspective for the new year, increase your income by listing and selling less units for more income. That will give you  free time to spend with your family and friends or to spend more time on Active Rain. Measure all you do with this question: What is the highest and best use of my time? OR Is this the highest and best use of my time?

Call Coach Katerina for Coaching and Consulting at 561-753-0135.

Who else wants to niche in the luxury home market? by Katerina Gasset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.