Being fiscally conservative is a position that will always leave you ready to take advantage of a situation.
The typical response is to try and remain as liquid as possible and to strike to buy low. The hard part is to go get a feel for when markets have bottomed out. By example, there was a commercial real estate depression (with a national recession) in the US in the late 1980's early 1990's. By definition at some point when all sales stopped and no sales were moving forward commercial real estate had $0 value. It took several years for the property values to bottom out. In my region I recall sales starting to reoccur and Identifying buyers buying at roughly $0.25 on the pre depression prices. If I wanted to take advantage of a residential real estate market and I was liquid I'd monitor volume of sales, volume of foreclosures, etc. I'd want to see if the volume of activity signaled a turnaround. Then I'd try and strike quick.
Many people made a killing during Great Depression, as well as 1970's recession. You have to have liquid assets (not dollar-denominated though) on hand that you can quickly convert to cash, and patience. The more desperate people become, the less you'll pay for their houses and antiques. That doesn't mean you can wait forever, you do have to be quick when the timing is right. Depression can be a blessing if you know what you are doing, because people will be trying to off-load their mansions and Ferrari's for pennies on a dollar to buy bread. Some commit suicides, it can get really nasty
Very True. While the nation will suffer as a whole during depressions, opportunists and people who have planned for these kinds of things will survive and even come out richer. Survival of the fittest, in a way.