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It appeals to those who enjoy late-night negotiating sessions and don't mind spending Sunday afternoon welcoming visitors to other people's homes. And when the housing market in Canada seemed to be heading nowhere but up, a career in real estate appealed to an awful lot of people who saw nothing but opportunity.

"Anybody who could breathe was out there selling houses," says Shelley Fine of Re/Max Realtron Realty Inc. in Toronto.

But in 2009, "this is a real market. Now you've got to work," says Ms. Fine, who has become much less shy about networking.

Ms. Fine is devoting more of her time to fundraising and arranging visitors for her chosen charity as she scales back her own business in real estate to part-time.

As more agents compete for fewer deals in cities such as Toronto and Vancouver, the real estate industry has already seen its numbers dwindle.

"In the last five years, we've had incredible numbers come in," says Beth Crosbie Alexander of Coldwell Banker ProCo in St. John's of the national tally, which reached more than 100,000 last year.

The Canadian Real Estate Association has seen its membership roll dip to about 97,000 this year, she says, and she expects the number to fall further.

Ms. Crosbie Alexander is chairing a task force set up by CREA to explore the trials of starting up.

Many of those who leave are part-time agents who were able to boost their income by selling one or two houses a year when listings were easy to come by. But the costs of running an office, printing business cards, advertising and putting together brochures are not worth the investment for some part-timers.

Ms. Crosbie Alexander says she joined the task force expecting to find that young agents are struggling when they have to compete against experienced veterans.

Instead, she found that young agents are using social networking technology to reach clients and are therefore able to reduce their marketing costs.

After initially dismissing Facebook as "a big time-waste," she says, she became a convert when she saw how many members of the task force use the social networking site to keep in touch with friends and clients.

Ms. Crosbie Alexander now uses Facebook to share information she has gathered with the task force - especially since many people are so inundated with e-mails that they don't bother to open them.

Twenty-three-year-old Christan Bosley of Bosley Real Estate Ltd. in Toronto is a member of the CREA task force and the fourth generation of her family working in real estate.

She finds that she uses technology far more than her father and company president, Thomas Bosley, does.

"He just got a BlackBerry two months ago," she says.

Ms. Bosley uses Twitter to send out tweets along the lines of "come to my open house on Saturday," but she finds the most useful strategy is to post her listings on Craigslist and Kijiji.

Her latest deal involved a one-bedroom unit that she posted on Kijiji and leased within 24 hours. Not only was the deal done quickly, she didn't spend a cent on marketing costs.

Ms. Fine says her charity work expands her social circle. She also introduces herself to people at her club, her exercise class and at the hospital where she volunteers.

"You hand out those cards and you ask," Ms. Fine says.

The agent says some in the business have become frustrated with the effort required to attract new clients in the Toronto market now as many buyers wait on the sidelines.

"There are buyers out there but people are just sitting back," she says.

Geon van der Wyst of Royal LePage Real Estate Services Ltd. in Toronto is confronting a tough market for the first time since he made the transition from dance to real estate in 2004.

As a relative newcomer to the industry, Mr. van der Wyst enlisted a former real estate executive to serve as a business coach. With the help of his adviser, Mr. van der Wyst looks for the strategies that most effectively expand his business. He sends out newsletters by print and e-mail, regularly updates his website and recently started a blog. He's on Facebook and LinkedIn.

And Mr. van der Wyst uses Google Analytics to see where hits are coming from and which keywords are being used. He can also track repeat visitors to his site.

Mr. van der Wyst, who is a former principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada, has also started advertising in the performance magazines for the ballet and the Canadian Opera Company.

For the most part, he finds that current clients don't know him for his dancing because the ballet audience is so specialized.

"I certainly don't rely on my previous career."

But by targeting fans in specialized publications, he figures, he is more likely to reach people in the arts community.

He doesn't skimp on the costs of his brochures and marketing materials because he wants to maintain a polished image.

But Mr. van der Wyst also plans to be vigilant about assessing his business on a quarterly basis. That way, he can scale back marketing expenses if his income falls.

Mr. van der Wyst says he can always fall back on the traditional methods that agents have used through markets good and bad, including knocking on doors or making cold calls.

"Years ago that's what people did - knock on doors."