1. Get an education from a reputable and established company.

These days, you can find real estate investment classes,workshops, and weekend seminars everywhere. Picking from among your options can be overwhelming. But, because you need to learn all aspects of the business, from knowing how to spot a good deal to how to keep a rehab under budget, making the extra effort to choose wisely is critical.

Strive to find a company with a long-standing reputation for providing training that works in the real world—and during all market conditions. Courses should be taught by active real estate investors and the program’s alumni should be out buying investment homes, too. The company itself should also be well established. In fact, the longer they, and their students, have been in business, the better your education—and career prospects—will be.

2. Hire a mentor who has seen it all.

Having a mentor on hand through good markets and bad can help you ride out economic transitions and, frankly, make more strategic choices. For example, if you’ve changed your mind about a deal when it may, technically, be too late, a mentor may help you pivot so that you have a chance to stay in the green. At the very least, getting feedback from an experienced investor will always be a better option than giving in to panic. So, get another set of experienced eyes on your real estate investing deals—especially during a recession.

3. Get to know your individual market.

What’s happening on a national scale isn’t always reflected in local markets. Even when it is, there is still usually room for nuance. It’s up to you to zoom in on what’s happening locally and also to keep up as things change.

For example, it wasn’t that long ago that Chicago, Detroit, and Atlanta were the hotspots for buying, rehabbing, and selling houses. But, because rents remained somewhat affordable compared to homeownership, renter populations also stayed strong. When home buying wanes, as they tend to do during recessions, cities like these may become especially great places for investing in real estate rentals.

By focusing on how your local market is faring, you’ll know how to best serve your community’s housing needs—and with what exit strategy you’re likely to make potentially good returns.

4. Equip yourself with a great tool that ensures you buy at a good price.

Particularly when times are tough, you’ve got to be savvy about all of the choices your make. And, when you’re buying houses to renovate and sell or hold, there’s little room for error when you make the property owner an offer. You’ve also got to make sure you rehab and sell or rent at the right price—and the only way to do that is to correctly calculate the numbers. Accurate real estate investment analysis and valuation is critical at all times. But, if you want to sell your rehabbed house later or realize a good cap rate on a rental, you cannot overspend during a recession.

5. Align yourself with a solid network of pros.

You’ll need a number of people in your corner to help you move on deals quickly, especially if investor competition starts to increase—as it can during a recession. From a way to get a hard money loan fast so you can close on a house to a way to quickly check a home’s title to ensure that it’s clear, you’ll need a network of reputable pros to lean on. It’ll help you to be surrounded by more accomplished real estate investors, too. Not only can they make recommendations for finding qualified pros, but they can also offer guidance and support throughout your career. And, it’s not a bad idea to get your team in place before you make an offer on that first house.

6. Generate qualified leads that are likely to close.

During recessions, the number of distressed homeowners tends to rise as more people become unemployed or burdened with extra bills. Without dependable funds to pay the mortgage or perform any repairs, the home lives of families can fall apart and many people lose their houses.

It can be tempting to set your sights on buying foreclosure auction homes when this happens or to purchase lead lists with the names of people struggling to pay their loans. But, the fact remains that the best source of qualified leads in any economy will always come from the homeowners themselves. When they reach out it’s because they want help sooner rather than later and that usually means the deal is more likely to close—and benefit you both.

The trick, of course, is knowing how to market to distressed homeowners effectively before things go from bad to worse. Your best bet for doing that is employing a marketing strategy, like HomeVestors®’ “We Buy Ugly Houses®” ad campaign, that’s already proven over the years—and during all economic conditions—to work.

7. Evaluate the house carefully.

When investing in real estate during a recession, what you look for in a house changes slightly since a lot of home buyers are squeezed and the rest tend to carefully weigh their options. Luxury housing, for example, will attract fewer qualified buyers. And, you’ll have a hard time selling any home that’s near railroad tracks, electrical lines, or the freeway—no matter how well it’s been rehabbed or how modestly priced. Instead, go for more traditional houses in neighborhoods that are attractive. Leave the house next to the gas station alone, or you may not ever find yourself a buyer.

8. Have a fast exit plan.

It’s also critical that you work to sell the house quickly, which means you can’t work too long or hard on the renovation. Unless your plan is to rent down the line to a tenant, it’s not worth the risk betting on an uncertain future market. Hold off on buying major fixers or performing extensive, and unnecessary, upgrades. In a recession, any repairs that take a big bite out of your time can end up swallowing your potential profits—if your intention is to sell the house in the same market you bought in.

9. Maintain flexibility in your investment strategies.

Recessions make great times to create diversification in your real estate portfolio and to be open to investment strategies you might not have otherwise considered. Homes you would have previously bought to strictly rehab and sell can be turned into rentals until the economy strengthens—and there’s an influx of new buyers.

If it’s multi-family properties you were leaning towards buying, still keep your eye out for single-family homes that are good deals. After all, there will be some people who can buy a house, especially as interest rates drop. And, there will be some areas that are hit harder than others. Though you may not have considered buying there in the past, now may be the time to get a great deal and, ultimately, turn a hard-hit neighborhood around.

There are many different ways to think outside of the box when it comes to investing in real estate. And, as any investor who has come out ahead in a recession will tell you, strategic flexibility is the key to survival.