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It looks like nobody is safe from the foreclosure mess going on across the country. Even the mega-wealthy are facing problems. Case in point: Former Major League Baseball player, Jose Canseco. Despite earning tens of millions during his playing career, Canseco’s home was recently foreclosed on.

Yahoo! Sports is running an article on Canseco and his housing woes.

Jose Canseco, the former AL MVP who made millions during his baseball career, has had his home foreclosed.

Canseco told the syndicated TV show “Inside Edition” that he walked away from his $2.5 million, 7,300-square foot home in suburban Encino because it didn’t make sense to continue making payments.

“I do have a judgment on my home and it to me is very strange because it didn’t make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else,” he said in an interview that aired Thursday…

Obviously, Canseco’s situation is unique and is not indicative of every homeowner who is facing financial trouble and being forced to make higher payments, but it’s a quick reminder that foreclosure can potentially threaten just about every homeowner.

Businessweek.com recently published an article by Keith McFarland entitled, “Taking Advantage of a Down Market” which discusses the economic downturn in the United States.

While the article mainly talks in generic turns about tips on making the most of what many people consider a recession, the tips are a perfect guide for what real estate agents should be doing to adjust their business plans in the current market.

The article begins,

The U.S. has officially entered a recession. What’s the best thing to do when times get tough? Hunker down, right? Wrong. I spent the last five years studying…

Click HERE to read the entire article.

Getting rid of the deadwood. Focusing your resources. Go shopping.

Some great advice for agents looking to adapt.

Go shopping? How can that be applied to an agent’s business?

Another way to look at it is to take advantage of the opportunity that’s available now to invest in purchases that will contribute to the long-term success of your business, like a HouseHunt.com exclusive territory.

The Marshall News Messenger posted an article that echoes the sentiments that a lot of HouseHunt.com member agents are saying:

In spite of the overall drop in the real estate industry, several areas across the country are showing sustained growth and stability.

The article reads,

Subprime mortgages. Housing crisis. Foreclosures.

Those topics have dominated the national news for the last few months.

However, that may not be the case here in East Texas.

“What we’ve seen here in Marshall, Longview and all of East Texas is a leveling of the market, not a decline,” said Clay Allen, owner of Clay Allen Real Estate and a broker for the past 31 years. “The ’subprime’ is not getting us, it’s the lack of product. We don’t have enough variety of housing in varying price ranges.”

Allen said the reason the market has remained steady in this area is “we haven’t seen the rapid inflationary jumps that we’ve seen in California, Florida, Boston and other areas.”

While the price of housing was increasing by 25 percent a year in those areas, “ours was going up 7, 8 percent here,” he said. “Conversely, while costs are dropping by 10, 20, 25 percent in other areas, our prices have remained steady. What we’ve seen is a leveling off of increase in value.”

With the strong job market, healthy economy and moderate home-price appreciation in the state — particularly in this area of the state — Allen said he thinks it’s unlikely that Texas will experience what has happened in other markets, where values have fallen dramatically, leaving subprime borrowers with loan balances that exceed what the home is worth…

The full article can be read here.

The only problem in the particular area mentioned in the article is a lack of homes to sell, but otherwise the market itself is holding strong.

While this may be surprising to some, it’s not particularly shocking to HouseHunt. We continually hear from our member agents across the country that their exclusive territory is doing well and that their website keeps them connected as the primary agent in those solid markets.

Michael Bearden, president and CEO of HouseHunt, Inc., today announced a new service to current and future member-agents at no additional cost.

The Real Estate Professional On-Demand and can be easily accessed by clicking on www.TheRealEstatePro.com/HouseHunt.

“The Real Estate Professional magazine has been an outstanding publication in our industry since its inception in 1977,” says Bearden, “and has provided valuable information and insight to its readers on such things as listing and selling methods, recruiting and agent retention techniques, brokerage management, trends in technology and the Internet, legal, and legislative topics. Each issue of this nationally-circulated magazine contains a wide variety of well-researched topics, written by highly respected members of the industry.”

Through an agreement with the publisher of the Real Estate Professional magazine, the On-Demand service is available monthly even though the hard copy of the publication is published bi-monthly.

“That’s because new material will also be available on the same Internet site on the odd months the magazine is not published,” Bearden said.

HouseHunt member-agents will be free to download and utilize the On-Demand material for day-to-day activities, including reproducing material for self-tutorial purposes and pass-out material for sales meetings, training classes, and related activities. Regular focus articles and columns in the magazine include: business planning, personnel, negotiation, organization, training, marketing, buyer representation, professional growth, the realty observer, high-end properties, finance, personnel, productivity and profits, and the editor’s corner. Popular features include: product review and 60 Days: A Glance Behind and a Look Ahead.

For those HouseHunt member-agents who would like to subscribe to The Real Estate Professional printed magazine, the publisher of Wellesley Publications has extended a special discounted rate of $15 (vs. the standard $39) prepaid for one year.