I should have clarified that I am speaking of more traditional means of real estate investment.

That said, there is still money to be made on the traditional side, but it’s not quite as attractive to investors.

I really enjoyed your article but I found one point particularily troubling. You said stay away from “losing industries” and went ahead to single out “real estate startups”. I just heard from a VC today and I won’t mention any names, that he just completed funding a real estate startup! I can think of at least four others funded in the last year. Despite tough times, real estate search queries and traffic to these sites have been consistently on the rise.

At the same time, current market conditions and a return to a more conservative credit market has seriously shaken up the brick and mortar real estate brokerages. Many are going out of business and others are trying to re-invent themselves with limited success. The real estate industry is in transition as new business models and technology come to fruition at a break neck pace, forcing old-school players to change or become obsolete.

Today’s investors in the online real estate space are buying (relatively speaking) low priced assets due to current market conditions and are positioning themselves to take advantage of the new real estate industry that is emerging. Online players will control a major segment of the real estate market during the coming rebound. And eventually things will return back to normal.

My point; I’d hate for your readers to miss out on that opportunity! I think you should rethink the industry. There is a reason that Zillow raised $87M, Trulia $33M (more than half of it late in 2008), and that Fidelity National rolled out CyberHomes, their own real estate search portal; Internet users are HUNGRY for real estate information. And the downturn has actually made them savier and hungrier; as they seek timely information to track the value of their assets and attempt to perfectly time their re-entry into the marketplace.

5 Tips for Raising Money in a Bad Economy. in category: Corporate Development by: Joe Griffin. We face the worst economic conditions since World War II. The crash of our major lending institutions, the stock market, ……

Allen Taylor