Whether they’re in the right niche or have evolved to take advantage of hard times, some businesses are bucking the national trend and doing very well in this economic downturn.

The primary thrust of a recent NY Times article covering this trend is change — businesses that are able to adapt to economic realities are going to do much better than those that hunker down and try to ride it out. Businesses such as Joe Bonin’s:

Joe Bonin’s San Diego real estate company used to focus mostly on managing and leasing retail strip malls and industrial and office parks. Once the recession hit, revenue tumbled as tenants moved, stopped paying or switched to shorter, less-profitable leases.

”I was really wondering if the business was going to survive,” Bonin said.

That’s when he decided to focus on work more suited for a slumping economy. His company now fixes up foreclosed or abandoned properties to sell.

ECP found tenants to live in a foreclosed condo complex in Spring Valley, Calif., owned by Pacific Western Bank. Besides leasing the property as apartments, Bonin’s company took over landscaping and cleaned up the units, said Dave Jensen, Pacific Western’s credit administrative officer.

That made the complex more marketable, Jensen said, because banks would be reluctant to extend a loan for a property that doesn’t generate any income.

Bonin’s company also started acquiring distressed commercial real estate, breaking it into pieces and then selling it. Revenue surged about 75 percent last year compared with 2008.

”It’s not about turtling down and then saying, ‘Well, I’m going to survive until we get to the other side of this thing,”’ Bonin said. ”We have to make fundamental changes.”

Source: NY Times