Last market downturn I experienced was the dotcom bubble of 2001 which resulted in the widespread deflation of tech stocks. It was also the year we started our telecoms business with zero start up capital ending in a modest profit 12 months down the line. In short, money can be made even when markets fall - you just have make the decision to take some risks and stick to the investment basics.

If you want another example, here’s one from That’s Business - the excellent case study of Charlton House - formed in the recession of 1991, turning over £340,000 in year one.

I’ve already blogged about profiting during the property market downturn and focused on the need to change your existing business model.

When it comes to property investment, we can consider the market as two stakeholders - the deal providers and the buyer/investors. Currently, the business model is flawed. BMV deal providers spend 99% of their time finding and packaging deals and 1% marketing them to an unknown market of investors. Yes, there are plenty of sites selling BMV leads and deals but it’s needle and haystack stuff. The more proactive are running their own property events, such as Rhett Lewis, which makes sense but as you’ll see a diminishing pool of investors leads to a higher overhead required to produce the same results.

The marketing that BMVers do do is reliant on mailing lists (which are generally ineffective) and promotion at the usual events. But, as you can see from this blog, even these aren’t working out anymore.

Investors, however, spend 99% of their time looking for these deals.

Seem like something’s wrong? That’s why we started the BMV Monster exchange to help facilitate a bridge in this information gap. We haven’t fully launched yet, but if you’re interested in latest developments and trialling the exchange sign up for launch announcements on the top right of this page and we’ll give you exclusive access as soon as it’s available.

Mortgage lending is up and the LIBOR is starting to ease, so the market is less about panic and more about the economic fundamentals. And, while the fundamentals aren’t positive at least it’s a case of the devil we know and the panic has subsided. If we follow the US lead, we are about 6-9 months behind. US sales are up (thanks mainly to the availability of bargains) and I firmly believe we’ll see UK property prices fall another 10-15% over the next 6 months followed by stabilization mid 2009. Also check out this blog by Matthew Moody on getting involved in property right now.

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