There’s an interesting editorial on Yahoo! Finance by Vicki Gerson that looks at some of the positives for buyers that can arise from the current market.

The article states,

Investing in real estate used to be considered a “no brainer,” a can’t-miss investment.

But these days, this sure thing isn’t so sure. Home prices keep falling. Standard & Poor tracking shows prices down 7.7 percent nationally in November 2007. The National Association of Realtors, or NAR, reports that sales of single-family homes were down by 13 percent in 2007, the biggest drop since a 17.7 plunge in 1982.

Representatives of the NAR say that this makes it the best buyers market in a long time. Prices are down, interest rates are near a 45-year low and the supply of houses is high…

You can read the rest of the piece here.

An agent with some foresight and the help of a HouseHunt.com exclusive territory could easily take advantage of this market by creating relationships with buyers wanting to make moves in the current market. These are buyers that could be looking to purchase in as soon as thirty days, or as late as a year from now.

Either way, they’re going to need a competent agent who’s ready to go when they are. A smart agent should build a pipeline of these ready buyers, establish a professional rapport with them, and cash in down the road.