Recession = Opportunity

A friend of mine, owner of a housing construction company and survivor of past recessions, recently told me:

“… the economy [is] a pendulum and will come back [soon]. I look at it as just deferring demand which must be satisfied at some point, there have never been this many people on the planet before so it should be quicker this time as compared to the recessions of the past. One of the best times to build your business is in recession. “

The best part  is that most people don’t realize this. While everyone is panicking and cutting back on marketing and other investments in their businesses, the strong leaders are investing, re-tooling, and aggressively going after new business. They’re using this recession to get access to cheap money and an abundance of good labor – as well as sharpening their market engagement strategies.

How does this apply to Realtors? Simple. Think about all of the people who entered the business over the last few years hoping to get a, “piece of the boom.” When things were moving, they were closing deals – in some cases with little to no effort. What’s going to happen to those Realtors now? I recently had a conversation with a Realtor Association insider about how many Realtors they anticipate will leave the industry; I was told that they were planning on anywhere between 15-30% of all Realtors would be hanging up their licenses and moving on. Wow.

So I ran some numbers on some average markets.

Assume transactions in 2009 are down 23% in compared to 2008
15% of Realtors have, or will leave the industry

Do some simple division, and…

There’s actually only a 9.5% reduction in the number of deals/Realtor as compared to 2008… and that’s IN a recession!

The numbers are roughly the same in all markets I’ve looked at in North America. This is a very simplistic look, I know, but it puts things into perspective – Realtors who work hard and stick this one out will be cashing in when the recession ends.

What an amazing opportunity.