Advantages Of Being In An Economic Downturn
Between lost customers, lost jobs, and lost homes, recessions can be horrific things to live through. Its also tough for recent high school and college graduates that can’t find jobs. Not only does this create trouble for them, it puts a burden on their mothers and fathers as well. Both the children and the parents can be greatly impacted when the child cannot afford to move out. Sometimes the parents even have to put off retirement to help their children out.
As always though, there is a silver lining to every cloud. There are many benefits that one can take advantage of in a recession. People are taking advantage of it all the time, and you should too. I wrote this article to talk about some of a recession’s benefits so that you can make use of them.
You’ll find that a great advantage of a recession is the fact that every consumer item seems to be put on discount. While business owners might be very frustrated at having to lower prices, customers are usually thrilled. Companies are reducing their prices in stores and acquiring new markets to inexpensively sell their goods in as well. In fact, womens flash sale web sites has had a 68% increase in the amount of people that visit these sites over the past year. This is because retailers are practically giving away their products on these sites.
They’ve also been propelled to the top by shopping enthusiasts. For example, many fashion blog will let their readers know of any upcoming flash sales so that they can take advantage of them before they come to an end.
Houses are also on sale right now. While some people are losing their homes through foreclosures, others are grabbing them up at bargain prices. People that were sitting on the sidelines during the height of the bubble are now buying multiple homes. These people will buy one home to reside in and a few homes to rent out to people that can’t buy.
This leads me to another beneficiary of the recession, the home and apartment rental industry. As a result of less people being able to buy or hold onto their homes, many people are now having to rent. This is fantastic for people that work in the rental industry or that own rental properties. While home values are steadily dropping, home rental prices are on the rise.
Even when you aren’t in a position to take advantage of any of the main benefits of living in a recession, you can take advantage of one of them. In fact, you don’t even have to do anything to take advantage of this benefit. People that have lost some of their income are going to pay less taxes. While this isn’t what people mean when they say they want to pay less taxes, it is a small consolation prize for a bad year.
You’ll also find that some governments will lower their tax rates or give tax credits to help people that are being hurt by the recession. Sometimes this can even exceed the amount of money lost. For instance, in 2008 the United States sent everyone a few hundred dollars to stimulate the economy. People that weren’t affected by the recession basically got a nice free shopping spree sent to them courtesy of the government.