Contractors/Business Owners: thoughts about economy in '24?

Fireballsocal said:
Gold isn't way up. I'm sure its price is highly manipulated because the price has been knocking around the nineteen hundreds for the last year with a few dips. It's currently sitting at $2060, approx.. $100 higher than it has averaged for the last year. With the premium the dealers are charging between retail cost and spot, you won't be making much profit if any right now unless you bought gold before 2020. 
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Exactly. I stacked silver for a while. Looking back, I’m not so sure that was a great bet/hedge. 

 
Sausage450r said:
Had a friend that was carrying financing on a subdivision be was developing. Then the market crashed. All those people he was carrying the note for walked. He almost lost his whole life savings, work and even his own house. It still cost him alot long run. Could have made millions if we didnt have that crash. Big risk big reward or big risk big loss. 
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Had a buddy buy just under 6 acres back in  03 or 04 used the money he sold off his new wife's condo to buy. Turned around and subdivided the property. He kept one and sold the five others.  With the down payments he got from the 4 others properties he got the driveway in  to all five as well as power up to his at the top of the hill.  All four paid for a while but never broke ground all four defaulted back to him.

He then got to sell all four once again. This time he had electrical and sewer connections to all of the lots.  This time two paid cash ( and a lot more) and two he financed once again, once again he is thinking he will get back the property.

 
Hate to be chicken little; but definitely feels like there is a 'storm' on the horizon.  How far away the horizon is and how fast the storm is moving is anyone's guess............

 
General contractor (CA-B) - work is steady, but I mostly do maintenance and interior remodels for existing property management clients. I keep my small crew busy but we have a week or two of downtime every now and again, which wasn't common a couple of years ago. 

Real estate broker - I'm primarily working with investors, either buying up new stock (that I get to remodel) or selling off deferred maintenence properties and upgrading for those investors. I spent a good chunk of life working with first-time buyers, and they're mostly on the sidelines due to interest rates. 

Mortgage broker - dead as a doornail. I put all of my long-time clients into rares below 3 when that was a thing, they're never touching those. My investors are paying cash or putting like 70% down so that they can cash flow on new investments. Glad I got my contractor license and out of the loan trade, the only way I'd be making it there these days is by lying to customers about whether borrowing was a good idea. 

Overall - interest rates are coming down, inflation is slowing, eventually the old people with houses bigger than they can maintain will have to move on. It'll be fine, I'll buy a new camper and some new toys in a couple of years and be back annoying you folks unless the housing market crashes and I have to buy more houses instead... 

 
Sausage450r said:
Saw a group of about 1000 walking from the fence in jacumba To the tent camp in inkopah yesterday morning. Pretty lame. Cant get anyone to care
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We see it every day in our imperial valley groups. 

 
Rockwood said:
Defense contractor. Usually pretty steady, but can always tell something’s up because I have  a lot more people applying. Right now, getting easier to find employees when it was insanity to find anyone who could fog a mirror for the last 3 years. 
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Large defense contractor here. We are definitely seeing people come back to work more than in the past few years. Although some of our smaller locations are still struggling to find people. Overall I am forecasting 10%-15% lower revenue year over year. Although I wouldn’t really consider it a slowdown. 2023 was our biggest year ever so more like things just normalizing. 

 
Dockmaster said:
Large defense contractor here. We are definitely seeing people come back to work more than in the past few years. Although some of our smaller locations are still struggling to find people. Overall I am forecasting 10%-15% lower revenue year over year. Although I wouldn’t really consider it a slowdown. 2023 was our biggest year ever so more like things just normalizing. 
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I’m seeing a similar slowdown in revenue, but that’s mainly due to a delay on a large job I have. The rest are on par from ‘22 and ‘23

 
I am in retail sales, actually I am the wholesaler to retailers.  I have finished booking my 2024 orders for accounts like pee pees Sporting Goods, Macys, REI, Nordstrom to name a few.  They are all planning their business down over 20% for 2024.  That also relates to a 20% reduction in the workforce for all involved.

 
Good TOPic. Commercial Service Company in Overhead Doors / Dock Equipment Dallas, Fort Worth, TX area. March 1st will be our 34th year in business. We do business with the Big Boys. Airports / Cities / Warehouses / Commercial  Leasing Companies / Logistics Companies / Trucking Facilities / Fire Stations / National Chain Companies like Lowe's Home Depot's Office Depot Fed Ex  Dr. Pepper etc..........Wherever the Semi's Go, we go. Fork Lift Drivers and Semi Drivers are our favorite people. We stay very busy in Cold weather. In the summer people leave their doors open all day. When the first freeze comes, they learn the doors don't work properly. Every company has a door to open / close. The only time we got hit hard was in 2008. The economy hit rock bottom. The banks cut off money to the large corporate accounts. When Obama was elected, they cut off the money to all the Air force Bases / defense companies like Bell Helicopter / Carswell Air Force Base / Raytheon etc..... That sucked. We have a small Nitch in the industry. Seems to work for the few employed @Superior Door. Peace  

 
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