A former Wall Street partner has come up with a great niche. Elizabeth Franklin's new Franklin Report is a Zagat's type guide toremodeling contractors.

Now Franklin is getting inquiries from people who want to be licensees of her report in other cities, and she hopes to be in 20 cities in just two years.

Business has been unbelievable! says Franklin. We brought the book out late last fall and we had hoped to sell 5,000 copies, total. That was according to all the experts in the publishing business. And we've sold over 10,000 copies in less than 6 months, and we're now in our second reprint.

The contractors are rated on a scale of I would hire them again to I would never even speak to them again.

And demand for information in the Franklin Report may stay strong. Franklin says Senator Chuck Schumer told her this week that Alan Greenspan thinks the New York real estate market will continue to stay very strong.

Unlike the Zagat guide, the Franklin Report checks the customers comments by interviewing the contractors to weed out people who Franklin says are never happy and just want to rant and rave.

Franklin Report even has a Web site (see related links) where people can rate contractors. Franklin says the site will generate new content for future editions of the book.

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