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Many investors have suffered terrible, dramatic financial losses over the course of the last five years.  While there is no quick fix to prevent struggling through a recession, there are clearly defined pathways for increasing your profitability as a real estate investment professional, even during a recession.  The strategies are simple and stand to logic and intuition, but they warrant explanation as the only mechanisms for increasing financial gains in spite of the economic conditions.

The first method is to focus on acquiring new customers.  In any field, the key to success is customer acquisition and retention, and so it follows that when times are tough, the best way to secure more income is to secure more customers.  Make marketing your primary objective, if it isn’t already, and spend every spare minute of your day on the phone, writing emails, posting fliers—get your name out there, and bring the business to you.

The second, less-reliable method is to focus on your existing and previous customers in an attempt to sell them new property.  This is a romantic notion, but obviously during a recession it can be difficult to encourage a customer to make multiple enormous transactions.

The third strategy is simply to charge more.  In the scheme of options to increase profitability, this one is bland and devoid of creativity, but it is proven and effective.  If you have customers, and you need more money, charge your customers more money.  Balancing needs with ethics is often a difficult task, and it is up to the individual investor to establish rates that he and clients are both comfortable with.

The last two strategies presented here are infinitely more creative, and probably equally effective.  First, consider how the recession has affected the housing market.  People will always need to move from location to location, home to home—that cannot be altered by economic conditions.  It is the luxury transactions, not those borne of necessity, that have been so dramatically reduced recently.  Therefore, consider shaping your customer field to include only those who are likely to be moving of necessity (lower income, younger, etc.).  Rich old folks are great for a 10% commission, but when money is tight across the board, disposable income retracts deep into the wallets of the wealthy and the poor alike, and so “pleasure moves”—real estate transactions not driven by any pressing needs—become rare.  Do not hang your business hat on these pleasure moves during a recession.

Finally, consider using your current database of real estate customers as a launching point for the sale of products and services other than property itself.  This line of thinking can open a world of possibilities.  For example, if you open your computer to find a list of 100 people that have purchased a home in the last year, consider organizing a landscaping company, or a painting company, and call each and every one of your customers to try to sell them your new product.  Begging is shameless; diversifying is commendable.  Branch out, be clever, and bring home the bacon, even in the toughest of times!

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Based out of Indiana, Jay Redding is a real estate entrepreneur, with experience in single family and multi-family investing.