Finally, we have Bill Gross saying this could be very different than Japan or our Great Depression.
Niether cases were the consumers or society leveraged like we are today. In 1929, we were the recipient of the world's capital. In 1990, Japan was an export based economy.
When the tide goes out, will we be standing there naked?
This is off-topic but do most people agree than an Ambac bailout is worse for the economy than no bailout, as it freezes up bank capital? We don't really need Ambac to survive because other players can take over...
I was in Home Depot on Friday, usually a busy day with homeowners buying for weekend projects. It was empty, of course I still couldn't find anyone to help me............
Anecdotally, the spec home down the street from me has been under desultory construction for the last two-odd years. It didn't sell in the expected timeframe, so what have the builders done? Kept working on it, with a few of the workers-of-questionable-legality hammering away at it a few hours every day.
It's entirely possible that speculators have been doing the equivalent of "shopping therapy", working away at their speculative purchases (or builds) to distract themselves from the gloomy reality that the homes simply aren't selling. That will come to an end when the banks pull the plug and move the homes into foreclosure (or the homebuilders into bankruptcy.)
-7.6% same store sales. OUCH OUCH OUCH, they are/were still in growth mode too. They also tend to have sharper (lower) prices than Home Depot.
Let's see Home Depot, Lowes, and Wal-Mart have slashed new store opening plans this year, I don't see that sector picking up this year.
How are all these economists, including the Fed forecasting for things to pick up in a few months. This is going to be a long slow grind for longer than expected.
I guess this points out how much of the activity at home improvement stores is/has been discretionary. I felt that they might take a hit in the housing slowdown, but that there's some basic level of home maintenance activity that might sustain them.
Now I'm thinking that they're so far past that level in terms of capacity that cuts in discretionary spending will lead to serious pain. I should point out that most of the smaller local-owned hardware stores in my area are still here despite the big box home improvement guys. The service is better, and if you just need a box of nails or a furnace filter, why drive five miles to a Home Depot where nobody knows where anything is?
I drove by Home Depot the other day with my wife and the parking lot was so empty we thought it was closed. Maybe Lowes and HD should think about merging and creating the ultimate- LowDepot- Your GIGANTIC BOX STORE!
Most commercial lenders and property owners dont agree, but commercial real estate is likely headed for a worse downturn than housing. After all, a subprime borrower living a house will typically do whatever she can to keep the house. The scoundrels I know in commercial real estate will send the keys back in a heartbeat. So once the downturn starts, commercial real estate will be marked to market brutally and efficiently. The only winner in will be the foreclosure and bankruptcy attorneys.
...
By year-end many local homebuilders will be at deaths door. A lot of hardworking, decent operators will need to be recapitalized. Were thinking of acquiring some of them.
...
Ive always enjoyed the banking industry (maybe because Ive always been a massive borrower). Lately Im considering putting together teams of hard nosed, tough, seasoned bankers. Wed go in and start accumulating distressed banks.
I was in Home Depot on Friday, usually a busy day with homeowners buying for weekend projects. It was empty, of course I still couldn't find anyone to help me
I was in Lowe's buying paint, primer and other painting accoutrements - $50 worth - to start giving my house a bit of a much needed makeover. I paid cash.
I went to Home Depot this morning. Totally empty. Only "self" check out was available.
BTW, I purchased only six light bulbs. The only other person making a purchase was buying two strips of molding. Our combined purchases were under $40.00.
Any calls for a bottom in housing during 2008 are WAY too early IMO.
In the shallow recessions since 1990 the remodeling segment has kept its sales and in some cases actually increased sales through the trough. The theory in the industry was that while the move-down process may have slowed people who weren't buying/moving were increasing the amount of remodeling they did.
Since October 2007 or so sales in hardlines have dropped substantially. Dec-Jan is always a slow period but the fear in the plumbing and electrical businesses is that there will be no spring pickup and that the hardlines industries might plunge during this recession.
This will be a double whammy because a fair percentage of heavy, difficult-to-ship hardlines products are still made in the US. Those manufacturing jobs will go too as a knockon.
...unprecedented decline in housing turnover, falling home prices in many areas and turbulent mortgage markets that impacted both sentiment ...
That's what? Two swallows and a chug-a-lug before breakfast?
I think the recent holding up in sales is inflation and predation. You can go to Lowes and get a great price on an 18v cordless drill but if they still carry 1/4"-1/2" NPT plumbing adapters you pay through the nose. Other than the small manufactured goods the prices are unattractive. The collapse of wholesale lumber prices is particularly not showing up for the consumer. Despite lumber's behavior things like electrical pipe (steel) or irrigation pipe (plastic) are up in line with their materials commodities explosion.
The talking heads are screaming buy buy buy. It's all about expectations. The rationale is that the general housing market isn't getting more worse more faster just more worse at the same rate. I call the markets in the denial phase.
The maneuvers that the big banks are making nowadays, along with their enablers at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere in Washington, really amount to little more than the old Polish blanket joke -- in which (excuse my concision) the proverbial Polack wants to make his blanket longer, so he scissors twelve inches off the top and sews it onto the bottom
the people who run the registers at Home Depot, McDonalds wouldn't even hire.
charlie | 02.25.08 - 10:26 am
That's pretty bad since fast food joints are now in the habit of not giving you everything you ordered (I have to check the bag twice to make sure all the food is there).
I can see it now, LowDepot stealing paint from customers at the register..
They used to get the orders right. Now they don't. Always give me the wrong stuff for the coffee, which I am picky about. And these are the SAME people! Resentment boiling over?
I'm going to Home Depot to buy some plants. Taking the day off. Will report. We were there last weekend, and there was reasonable traffic, and a reasonable number of helpers.
Well, if we're talking quality of service, I was once in a strange town trying to find a replacement for a specialty lightbulb. I called Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowe's. Only at Lowe's did they actually ask intelligent questions and, in the end, have any idea of what I was talking about. They didn't have it, but told me to try a specialty lighting store. Which I did, and they did have it.
sunsetbeachguy writes:
Does anyone remember the Builder's Emporium chain?
Now that you mention it.
I like going to Ace Hardware because it's much easier to find smaller parts but just found out that they "remodeled" the store and now carry less then half of the items they used to.
Finally, we have Bill Gross saying this could be very different than Japan or our Great Depression.
Niether cases were the consumers or society leveraged like we are today. In 1929, we were the recipient of the world's capital. In 1990, Japan was an export based economy.
When the tide goes out, will we be standing there naked?
Now more heated bathroom floors in Juno? shocked
This is off-topic but do most people agree than an Ambac bailout is worse for the economy than no bailout, as it freezes up bank capital? We don't really need Ambac to survive because other players can take over...
I was in Home Depot on Friday, usually a busy day with homeowners buying for weekend projects. It was empty, of course I still couldn't find anyone to help me............
just remember , in t-ball , everyone gets a trophy..
this is the t-ball economy.
Anecdotally, the spec home down the street from me has been under desultory construction for the last two-odd years. It didn't sell in the expected timeframe, so what have the builders done? Kept working on it, with a few of the workers-of-questionable-legality hammering away at it a few hours every day.
It's entirely possible that speculators have been doing the equivalent of "shopping therapy", working away at their speculative purchases (or builds) to distract themselves from the gloomy reality that the homes simply aren't selling. That will come to an end when the banks pull the plug and move the homes into foreclosure (or the homebuilders into bankruptcy.)
-7.6% same store sales. OUCH OUCH OUCH, they are/were still in growth mode too. They also tend to have sharper (lower) prices than Home Depot.
Let's see Home Depot, Lowes, and Wal-Mart have slashed new store opening plans this year, I don't see that sector picking up this year.
How are all these economists, including the Fed forecasting for things to pick up in a few months. This is going to be a long slow grind for longer than expected.
I guess this points out how much of the activity at home improvement stores is/has been discretionary. I felt that they might take a hit in the housing slowdown, but that there's some basic level of home maintenance activity that might sustain them.
Now I'm thinking that they're so far past that level in terms of capacity that cuts in discretionary spending will lead to serious pain. I should point out that most of the smaller local-owned hardware stores in my area are still here despite the big box home improvement guys. The service is better, and if you just need a box of nails or a furnace filter, why drive five miles to a Home Depot where nobody knows where anything is?
I drove by Home Depot the other day with my wife and the parking lot was so empty we thought it was closed. Maybe Lowes and HD should think about merging and creating the ultimate- LowDepot- Your GIGANTIC BOX STORE!
CR,
There is a good interview with Marcel Arsenault, large CRE investor turned short seller, now turned vulture condo project investor.
DollarCollapse - Your ringside seat for the global financial crisis
Most commercial lenders and property owners dont agree, but commercial real estate is likely headed for a worse downturn than housing. After all, a subprime borrower living a house will typically do whatever she can to keep the house. The scoundrels I know in commercial real estate will send the keys back in a heartbeat. So once the downturn starts, commercial real estate will be marked to market brutally and efficiently. The only winner in will be the foreclosure and bankruptcy attorneys.
...
By year-end many local homebuilders will be at deaths door. A lot of hardworking, decent operators will need to be recapitalized. Were thinking of acquiring some of them.
...
Ive always enjoyed the banking industry (maybe because Ive always been a massive borrower). Lately Im considering putting together teams of hard nosed, tough, seasoned bankers. Wed go in and start accumulating distressed banks.
Does anyone remember the Builder's Emporium chain?
At least in So Cal.
They were the home depot of the late 1970s.
Poof, bye, bye.
I was in Home Depot on Friday, usually a busy day with homeowners buying for weekend projects. It was empty, of course I still couldn't find anyone to help me
I was in Lowe's buying paint, primer and other painting accoutrements - $50 worth - to start giving my house a bit of a much needed makeover. I paid cash.
And Lowe's is supposed to be "best in class"?
This is about to get fugly.
I went to Home Depot this morning. Totally empty. Only "self" check out was available.
BTW, I purchased only six light bulbs. The only other person making a purchase was buying two strips of molding. Our combined purchases were under $40.00.
Any calls for a bottom in housing during 2008 are WAY too early IMO.
Morticia! Lowes net is down 33%!
This is great news!
Punditry, nice -- but t-ball game can only be propped up for so long. Rollerball is what we'll be playing soon enough.
YouTube - Rollerball (1975) trailer
Existing home sales fell 0.4 percent in Jan
In the shallow recessions since 1990 the remodeling segment has kept its sales and in some cases actually increased sales through the trough. The theory in the industry was that while the move-down process may have slowed people who weren't buying/moving were increasing the amount of remodeling they did.
Since October 2007 or so sales in hardlines have dropped substantially. Dec-Jan is always a slow period but the fear in the plumbing and electrical businesses is that there will be no spring pickup and that the hardlines industries might plunge during this recession.
This will be a double whammy because a fair percentage of heavy, difficult-to-ship hardlines products are still made in the US. Those manufacturing jobs will go too as a knockon.
Cranky
...unprecedented decline in housing turnover, falling home prices in many areas and turbulent mortgage markets that impacted both sentiment ...
That's what? Two swallows and a chug-a-lug before breakfast?
I think the recent holding up in sales is inflation and predation. You can go to Lowes and get a great price on an 18v cordless drill but if they still carry 1/4"-1/2" NPT plumbing adapters you pay through the nose. Other than the small manufactured goods the prices are unattractive. The collapse of wholesale lumber prices is particularly not showing up for the consumer. Despite lumber's behavior things like electrical pipe (steel) or irrigation pipe (plastic) are up in line with their materials commodities explosion.
The talking heads are screaming buy buy buy. It's all about expectations. The rationale is that the general housing market isn't getting more worse more faster just more worse at the same rate. I call the markets in the denial phase.
The maneuvers that the big banks are making nowadays, along with their enablers at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere in Washington, really amount to little more than the old Polish blanket joke -- in which (excuse my concision) the proverbial Polack wants to make his blanket longer, so he scissors twelve inches off the top and sews it onto the bottom
Kunstler...what a gift.
I don't know if Lowes is more upscale, but I prefer Lowes because the people who run the registers at Home Depot, McDonalds wouldn't even hire.
I may be purchasing a toilet stopper later this week--at least a $10 purchase! The home renovation boom continues uninterrupted.
PV, I'm not sure if your post was supposed to be mocking mine, or if you're just mocking the economy in general.
the people who run the registers at Home Depot, McDonalds wouldn't even hire.
charlie | 02.25.08 - 10:26 am
That's pretty bad since fast food joints are now in the habit of not giving you everything you ordered (I have to check the bag twice to make sure all the food is there).
I can see it now, LowDepot stealing paint from customers at the register..
I still couldn't find anyone to help me............
They probably fired 99% of staff, to economize. LOL
(I have to check the bag twice to make sure all the food is there).
How often do they short you on the number of fries?
They used to get the orders right. Now they don't. Always give me the wrong stuff for the coffee, which I am picky about. And these are the SAME people! Resentment boiling over?
I'm going to Home Depot to buy some plants. Taking the day off. Will report. We were there last weekend, and there was reasonable traffic, and a reasonable number of helpers.
I'll be doing my part for the American economy by picking up $5 worth of lag bolts today at Home Depot. woo!
Well, if we're talking quality of service, I was once in a strange town trying to find a replacement for a specialty lightbulb. I called Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowe's. Only at Lowe's did they actually ask intelligent questions and, in the end, have any idea of what I was talking about. They didn't have it, but told me to try a specialty lighting store. Which I did, and they did have it.
Does anyone remember the Builder's Emporium chain?
For folks who like to do things?
sunsetbeachguy writes:
Does anyone remember the Builder's Emporium chain?
Now that you mention it.
I like going to Ace Hardware because it's much easier to find smaller parts but just found out that they "remodeled" the store and now carry less then half of the items they used to.
The long-defunct Builders Emporium on Lincoln Blvd. is still the gold standard in bad service.
It was empty, of course I still couldn't find anyone to help me
rc helicopter
Tactical Flashlights
video game