If you find yourself planning for the new year and wondering where we are heading, well we can only look at the past to go forward in the future.  This link is as practical and readable a report as I have seen.  I believe this article has the basic and fundamental historical facts to be on the money and will remind us veterans,  that this is a business based on cycle after cycle. It is long and full of graphs and charts, but worth a look in figuring out what you may want to do with your business in 2007.

http://www.financialsense.com/Market/pretti/2007/0105.html

In the past booms and busts, the Denver area and Colorado market conditions have been very counter cyclic to the rest of the country.  While many areas of the nation have been posting gains of 10%-12%-18% a year...Denver (excluding the mountain communities) has only kept up with the basic 3%-5%  appreciation, depending on the area.  While other states and cities like Phoenix, AZ,  will see some big declines...Colorado and it's bubble landed five years ago!

My advice; hunker down, batten the hatches and tough it out before the next "Colorado" cycle. The number one item that the Denver and the surrounding communities needs is job growth...and  I don't mean working at Burger King or more real estate brokers.

1.  Keep your office overhead and office costs well managed and or reduced (people don't care about offices)

2.  Look for other sources of income...affiliated business arrangements (title and banking)

3.  Keep more of the commission income you earn and give away less per deal (splits are for part timers)

4.  Increase points of contact with your clients and shore up your relationships (Statistic based newsletters)

5.  Use technology to keep you in as many places as you can be at any given time (Web, Blog, email, vidieo)

6.  Enroll in as many education classes as possible, and not just the industry standards like GRI..but collage level courses in technology and new forms of electronic permission based marketing.

For those of us that have been in this business long enough, we know that there is no such thing as a crystal ball.  The only thing that is certain for sure is change.  Change will be the biggest news item for the next five years. The Crystal ball says get ready to CHANGE.