While many people my age are barely surviving, or still living at home, I took huge risks, saved diligently, read everything I could get my hands on.

Standalone brick and mortars like compass are the ones that are burning through money and taking it from the agent and customer it is very hard for compass to survive in those environment, as company like as big as amazon or apple move to hybrid work environment, the compass failed to grasp the spirit hence their transaction cost is so high.

@Scott Trench I think human nature makes it is easier for people to be more pessimistic than optimistic (survival bias). 

That was the ONLY way I could have survived back in the days of 18% interest rates.I bought homes using seller financing & had to rent every room to make the mortgage payment, cover the rehab & we split the utilities.

I know if the previous owner is was foreclosed on had a mortgage then that mortgage survives with the property.

When markets change they have a massive nut to pay and start bleeding cash to stay afloat.I see this with large commercial brokerages when cycle sales is hot the champagne is flowing and companies can't hire on people fast enough then downturn happens and they have to merge with other companies to survive or go out of business all together. 

And yes, I feel down, and low 7 behold, I survived, got back on, fell again, got back up, fell again, over and over getting 1 tiny % better each time. 

The guru has never seen nor have they survived a downturn.

Cockroaches are incredibly hard to kill on your own, they can live pretty much anywhere and eat pretty much anything to survive.

I have not been through an 08' situation, but I can say in confidence you want $10-15k in reserves PER door if you want survive an economic downfall.