The international problem

Today, I received this email. (I will only disclose the sender's name if I receive permission):

This email comes all the way from New Zealand. Here in the last five years we have had a big building boom with great profits to be made. I was lucky enough to start my business during this time buying small individual sections of land then designing and building residential houses one at a time. I would then sell the finished product buy placing it on the market on completion. This system was successful in the boom time but now I find myself in a recession where the risk is to high to continue doing this. We don't have referrals because generally we don't even meet the people that purchase the houses so my question is quite a broad one. What are some ideas to get client base and to source work from my position. Currently there is not a lot of work available and many builders advertising in the paper and on radio. Have you any unique ideas, from your experience, that I could draw on. Any help would be very much appreciated.

You can see here the problem's scale and international nature. I couldn't offer the writer much of a solution, suggesting if he built great buildings, to find through the records office who owns them and start developing relationships for maintenance, upgrades and referrals. What would you do in this situation?