Hi
Anyone else seeing a slowdown in bids coming in? Mainly residential here and have had a slow start to the year. I assume commercial is still strong but don't do much commercial. Always have done at least 80 percent residential homeowner work and trying to decide if I should cast a wider net.

We have experienced the same as you. Residential slowed, commercial very strong at this time. We transitioned from about the same percentages as you but the migration to 80% commercial was not that bad. Lucky I guess because it happened very organically. Different enviroment, but we like it better.

Hard to say. Demographics and geography play so heavily into this. I bet there's differences between different parts of major cities even.

I do nicer houses, which around here is $1-3M. I do very little commercial. I think starter homes are around $350k now, (which is nuts, when I got in the trades 25 years ago, they were about $125k)

Right now we're busy. Doing a lot of bidding as well. September and October was a little slow last year for me. We had enough to keep going, but we were at a pretty leisurely pace for a 7-8 weeks. Which was kinda nice.
I'm not certain how far out we actually are booked out. Scheduling has been really tough. Projects just don't seem to adhere to any kind of schedule or timeline. Jobs that should start on date X, end up starting two months later. I think we're booked pretty well through the summer, but you don't know until things are done and paid for.

I don't understand why things are still so busy yet. I thought by now with plandemic nightmares I'd be belly up and working a drivethru window by now. I'm debating about bringing in a cousin that used to work for me, (and was great to work with), for a few weeks in the next couple of months. I'm pretty well at capacity for the labor I have currently available. I'm thinking we're going to have a huge hard push in May, June and July. After that, my crusty ball doesn't see any further. I'm not certain I want to take on the responsibility of taking on another full time employee at this time. I have a fair amount of uncertainty about the future. But maybe it's time.

Slow? No. But the uncertainty has skyrocketed and type of work changed. Money is moving slower. New construction is a shadow of itself just six months ago and a wave of remodeling clients who couldn’t get a contractor on the phone these last handful of years have stepped forward. And to put it as nicely as I can, most folks are acting more than a little nutty.

Not at all. However, unpredictability has increased and the nature of labour has shifted.

Yes I think the nature of labor shift actually causes me more headache than a few slow bidding months. I can usually find more jobs sooner or later. But I'm not confident I can find reliable employees when I do fill the pipeline again. The people are out there but as soon as you mention physical labor/work in a job interview they look at you like you have two heads. When I started in the labor force going to work meant actually working. Not sure what the current definition of working even means anymore.

FWIW I think the upcoming recession (if there is one) will be mild, the only reason for the slow down is Powell raising interest rates around 5%, needless to say that effects housing big time

The recent bank failures have given Powell pause, but those banks were local banks which are vulnerable because of their narrow depositor niche

IOW nothing like 2008, the avg home buyer now has the highest credit rating in the history of the US

Not that anyone hears this but housing demand can be predicted by demographics, which look very good for this year and next

See this:

View higher quality, full size image (693 X 417)

Demographics may look good in the year ahead. But with a flat or negative birth rate I'm concerned about the future need for cabinets and many other consumer products. At some point we won't need more new houses much less cabinets. But maybe I'm thinking too much and not focusing on the job at hand which is to get more good bids in the door.

Me too Riley

The guy I listen to the most on this subject says "the US has replacement workers". He also says that the US has too many houses.

Which is not the case in the rest of the world e.g. Japan will have half the population by 2050

Existing houses will always be cheaper than new houses because they were built with yesterday's labor and materials

The only countries he says will have a growing population are India, Nigeria, and the US

Elon Musk and Jack Ma talking about population implosion