8 of 9
BACKNEXT
From house sales to foreclosures
Pablo Maia, president
Pablo Maia Realty Group

Maia opened his real estate business in 1999, and at one point, he had 17 employees. But as you might expect, the housing crisis is not working in his favor.

"I'm in survival mode," says Maia. "We're doing a lot of short sales, which is keeping us going, and we just try to help our customers who are facing foreclosure."

Maia is finding the little business he has right now to be discouraging. "We will call the bank on behalf of our customers for things like loan modifications and wait for hours just to get a curt, unhelpful answer. I don't blame the banks - I know they're under a lot of pressure right now. But the situation is just very difficult."

Maia has had to cut his staff to nine to keep his head above water. "Now we pay only for the essentials," he says.

NEXT: Prepping for a bad year

LAST UPDATE: Mar 02 2009 | 11:06 AM ET
Sponsored by
In one town, recession helps bridge cultural rift Framingham's immigrants always felt like outsiders. Then the downturn began forcing the town's planners and entrepreneurs to work together to save imperiled businesses. More
A small town weathers the downturn Scenes from Framingham, where small businesses struggle to stay afloat in hard economic times. More video
What do you think of Framingham's challenges? More
Sponsors

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.