Unbelievable how the time flies!
I started this blog on February 20th 2005, and here we are still at it six years later.
A lot has changed in the intervening years: Mostly as a result of the depression in the construction/remodeling industry caused by our housing market crash. That slow motion train wreck really started in the Fall of 2007, came to crescendo with the stock market disintegration in 2008, and continues with the seemingly never ending parade of housing foreclosures.
2005 was when housing prices and the refinancing and remodeling delirium surrounding them were at their most feverish pitch. Fast forward to today and everyone left in the Industry, and anything connected to housing, is struggling to stay afloat.
Contractors have it bad...really, really bad. Many have gone out of business or retired. The ones who remain are glad to have any sort of work. Kitchen and bath retailers with showrooms have been very hard hit. Most have fairly large overhead. Only those who socked away money for that proverbial rainy day and cut staff have survived.
Many other retailers whose businesses were built around furnishing and decorating homes have gone under, as well as building materials suppliers (those few that were left after the Big Box stores decimated their numbers).
Many businesses that I have known and sent my clients to for decades are now, sadly, gone.
It's a gloomy time. That's for sure! The only bright spot is the ultra high-end. Seems like those folks just never run out of money!
The middle-class continues to struggle with joblessness, under-employment and homes that are too expensive for their reduced incomes. Worse, many have already lost those homes they invested so heavily upon.
About the only thing you can say about the future few years is that we have nowhere to go but up. I think it will be a long and slow haul though. Living within our means does not come easily to Americans.
Good luck everybody. Here's hoping that my seventh year anniversary post is back to ebullient and optimistic.
Peggy
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