What are you doing to stimulate your economic situation?

It sees that every week the headlines are dedicated to the dire financial condition of our national, state and municipal economies, the President has told us it is going to get worse, and the stock markets around the world swing from 200 point drops to 200 point gains almost daily; what's a real estate broker/investor/entrepreneur to do to secure a paycheck and not have to go broke? Many of us are looking for alternative methods of getting deals closed. This may mean private lending (hard money,) private investors (individuals who want more than a 2-3% return on their cash,) joint venture arrangements, buying "subject to an existing mortgage" or other creative mechanisms. We have found that banks are taking a lot longer to commit to a deal are requiring substantially larger down payments (up to 40% on the commercial side) when providing financing. When it comes to properties that they own or may soon own (short sale situations) the staff is either so overwhelmed with work that they cannot get back to you in a timely manner or, they make mistakes which take a substantial amount of time to rectify prior to Closing. What this means for the brokers is it takes longer to get paid or deals may die; buyers may lose financing as the economy deteriorates and lenders change criteria, sellers can lose the property to foreclosure, the property may be vandalized or damaged by mother nature.

All of this dicates that the small business person/investor has to be creative to maintain cash flow and their standard of living. What are you doing to stimulate your economic situation?