"That all adds up to what one of the Stanford researchers, the economist Nicholas Bloom calls
"Rocky Balboa recession." It never seems to give up, he says, even when you think it's dead and buried."
I have made a conscious effort here in the past (with a few lapses) to cite any articles from economists, economic soothsayers, or biz journalists who have written ad nauseum about our longest recession on record.
I am lapsing again here. This article is from Jim Tankersley of the Atlantic and it is entitled
We're Not 'Fine': The 3 Iron Truths of the Recovery
For those of you with a real short attention span or an overly nervous mouse twitch, this is the article for you. Here is the link.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/were-not-fine-t...
After reading it, I can only add three things.
The first is that I would change the title slightly and substitute "Iron" with "Ironclad"
Secondly, like most articles of merit dealing with helping us better understand what has and is still going on with this unshakeable economic malaise (sorry JC) this one has its set of supporting graphs. This one bears repeating here, in case you can't bear to get through the entire article. It is by far the most compelling of them all, and you might have seen it before.
This is an ESTIMATE of the number of construction jobs lost since the peak in 2006. Of the somewhere near 8 million jobs lost from that peak till the official end of this never ending recession in or around sometime in 2009, 2 million of those total jobs were in construction.
Those were just the jobs directly or nearly directly (e.g. building material suppliers) related to construction. I could be mistaken here (I hope I am), but I do not think this accounts for semi-factual and anecdotal estimate of about a 30% or higher job loss in the design professions. Quite a nosebleeding, stomach-swallowing plunge there eh ?
Thirdly, for those of you who naively believe any of the following:
Please send me some of that reality-bending, mind altering delusional, one puff stuff you have been inhaling recently or since all this mayhem started. Stash it in the bottom right-hand corner of the gigantic portrait of Mao in Tianemen Square. If I am fortunate to get to visit Bejing while I am here, we can coordinate the delivery. I will be all stealthy, and wait till no one is looking during the changing of the guard. Should be a cinch.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Garulay, RLA on The problem is managing the help and the costs associated with it. Labor issues, labor issues, labor issues. Then the overhead forces you to keep work coming in even when it is lesser work than you intend to do. Then the referals are for more and more lower end stuff and that is what you become, if you are not careful.
Getting in on good teams is huge. Familiarity between project managers and subs is huge ... and between subs and other subs. I just finished a job with a great team from the GC to the smallest subs. I was the new guy and hope to be in as part of the team moving forward. Very high end residential
I also work on another team with an architect, custom builder, engineer/surveyor, and enviromental consultant where I have done six projects in the last twelve months. They work in a PUD that requires landscape plans prior to building permits which helps. Still a lot of raze and replace ocean front residences happenning (thank you 1%ers).
I'll take the chaos of this over managing my own labor crews any day. When I don't work, I don't lose money ... but it seems that I'm always working. I'm not making huge money, but it is not bad.
Permalink Reply by Heather Smith on Yep. Raining today. Labor issues were a challenge at the beginning of the season. It is a lot of work, and we never feel like we know enough. We have some people that look for lawn/irrigation by low bid...but for a design if they have called us 85% of the time they want us. We are still working out whether to sub irrigation/seed...we have a few times, because we can't compete with their prices.
Permalink Reply by Roland Beinert on 
Permalink Reply by Boilerplater on From the article: "Huffines is developing Viridian, 5,000 units on a 2,300-acre site in a flood plain near a landfill in Arlington, Texas."
Sounds like an awesome site! I have to pay for flood insurance, live with the risk of flooding AND I get to smell landfill stench all the time?! AND its in Texas! I'll be surrounded by Conservatives! I'm applying for a mortgage right now!
Permalink Reply by Roland Beinert on Viridian is a bluish color, right? So I guess the name of the neighborhood symbolizes that it will be under water at some point.
Permalink Reply by Leslie B Wagle on More on architecture degree holders' prospects (not our field but related):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/new-study-shows-arch...
Which is a shame, as it's a hard subject to study, and not full of people trying to find an easy way of life in the first place.
Permalink Reply by landplanner on Leslie:
Thank you for contributing this. Unfortunately, this only reinforces what other similiar or equal articles for at least a year. That is not a critique in the slightest. It is an acknowlegement that very little, if nothing has changed on this topic, and what the realities are for "architects" are the same shared realities that all graduates from the design professions now face. There several threads here that have extensive commentary and opinion on this very topic. None of them bear repeating here. If you choose to go pursue a degree (whatever level) in the design professions, you certainly have been warned here of the downside. You also have been uplifted by those that say "do what your spirit and heart tell you to and be damned about the current realities" or something like that. Tough choice, very tough choice.
There is no one, universal answer. I am of the crowd here at Land8Lounge that believe we will survive and eventually thrive again. But in that time between, we will have to recreate and reinvent (sorry Al Gore) in ways we never imagined having to do.
Maui Bob, you cannot resist commenting on this.
Permalink Reply by Boilerplater on A little something to brighten your day:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/business/economy/new-indications-...
So, first that supply of existing homes has to be bought up. That takes a few years maybe? Then they'll start building more seriously again. I'm thinking it wont be the large-lot typical suburbia that we're used to.
Permalink Reply by landplanner on Thank you for posting this. I'm thinking the same way.
I read several econ and one very good housing blog from time to time. What they all seem to point to is the huge "shadow" inventory of homes that are still in the foreclosure pipeline that have to be worked through first before there is any real sustained recovery in housing. They all agree on the easily understood point that any recovery in the housing market will be regional and scattered around the country. Those states and their metro areas that got hammered the hardest will be some of the last to come back and complete a real housing recovery. There are some abberations out there. I saw an article not that long ago that the supply of available homes in Las Vegas was dropping fast and home builders were building again. I think accuracy of that article is probably somewhere between realtor and home builder hype and actually what is going on there.
I do know real estate investment companies have been formed in the last couple of years and are highly capitalized in some cases by hedge fund money. Unbelievable. Those investment companies are vaccuming up foreclosed homes in many markets such as LV and especially southern and northern California. They have a buy, hold (rent) with an eventual sale model that seems to be working.
Permalink Reply by Boilerplater on I just sent in my $150 (cheap!) to renew my Nevada license yesterday. Maybe it will be useful in 2015 or so! Its such an absurd place...don't know if I'd want to work there again, but I did get to do some things that I'm proud of. I wonder who those companies are renting to in LV when so many people have up and left the valley, as I did last year.
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