Around here, it has been miserable, except for carpet layers re-habing foreclosures. Some say it's the worst they've ever seen, worse than the early 90's. And it's going to last awhile. With gas prices at $4.25 a gallon and competing with the illegals, it makes one think about not even bothering to try. Customers have become extremely picky and not wanting to pay for experienced installers, preferring to go with the low price. I'm almost ready to hang it up and do something else. What has been your experiences of late?

I'm booked through the end of October on work. But take that with a grain of salt. I am unique in the fact that I am an adequate installer of virtually any hard surface material there is. Most of my work year round involves installing ceramic or stone and shower construction. Hardwood installs always come in third.

The job I'm on right now involves building two glass block showers, about 400' of 12 x12 porcelain tile floors, 900' of 18 x 18's , then last will be another 900' of an engineered Tigerwood.

I rue the day when I can say most of my work is hardwood.

I have work 'till 1st of july , however same here too ...it looks very bad , considering how many people call for any estimates ..
Today the crude oil did hit $139 ... ouch .. yeah we should look soon for something different ..

Nothing but sad news in SW Florida. The traveling I did recently shows areas where is was a hotbed for new construction is dead. Restoration work seems quite busy (but compared to 3-4 years ago they complain) in the northeast or around DC, Baltimore, and Philly. I was suprised to see quite a few new homes going up in my old neck of the woods(PA), but real estate speculation wasn't as rampant as other areas a few years back.

Seems the key is remodeling..just ask Jerry.

I'm working like crazy here in Connecticut. I'd say it's because of a few things. First is I do top shelf work most of which is the sanding and finishing. Installing has turned into a rat race so I'd recommend relying on quality sanding and finishing instead.

Secondly, there's a lot of money in Connecticut so I'd imagine guys from other states might have it harder than we do here in Connecticut.

Thirdly, I only bid on middle to high end work. Far more remodeling than new construction. New construction is way down and the local companies that thrive on it are laying off their grunts as is usual.

So to sum it up, I think you'll hang in there if you do high quality sanding and finishing,steer clear of spec houses and hang tight during this slump.

Very steady up here in Canada, I sure hope it doesn't slow down because we are planning an expansion to double our capacity.

Cheers
Steve

Its very strange here, being a new company (was with a different company as a partner until about a year ago) Things were really slow jan/feb
maybe 2000 sq in jan/feb
2000 in march
2500 in april
3500 in may
3600 this week, and 4000 more this month
august is booked
have 5 jobs that I need to scheduale, 3 debaiting my estimate, and every day this week I have come home to a refferal or two (email/messages) all who want me to do thier floors, slam dunk estimates.

Right now working 14 hr days, 7 days a week for next 3 weeks, Usually me alone, have 1 full time helper now, and 3 part time guys (for night and weekends) from previous companies I have worked for.

Im exausted. I wish I could scheduale these estimates I have waiting in nov-march LOL, but everyone wants it done tommorow.

All in all I think I am having a good first year. Lots of new refferals, even old customers from other compaines anre tracking me down

It was slow there for about a month and with he bills piling up and gas prices I too thought about hanging it up, but gambled on some advertising and did a few jobs at first then the referas started coming in and Im booked for about 3 months and hopefully stays that way, I too am working at least 10-12hrs days, have my brother and sons helping out due to the lazy,drug addicts that I usually find,lol.

Alot of helpers crying for work but nobody shows up,lol. Anyways, getting about 2-3 calls a day for estimates, hope I keep getting them, but just trying to find the time to get them in and be on the job is killing me.

The wife is complaining about me working to much and too hard,lol, they never stop, first your not working enough and theres no money and then its your working to much.

Oh well, hang in there guys it has to get better.

Ain't that the truth. I've been getting some work done lately and it takes 2-3 phone calls to get guys to show up. And they warn me forget it when hunting season rolls around. Guess they can survive in their old ways from that.

Very busy up here in Vermont as well. I work alone so to keep that in mind also. Im currently booked through the month of August and still the phone continues to ring. I've been very nervous though waiting for the bottom to fall out. I haven't had to get agrresive with the price yet and not sure if I will or not. We'll see. By the way it's ALL REMODEL. Hang in there fella's.

been busy up until this last two weeks then everything came to a screeching halt. i have a ton of jobs hanging out there thats been bid including a post office sand job but cant get know one to commit to anything.i only sand and refinish so that hurts me some,if it gets bad enough i guess ill start installing again but like everyone said that is a rat race with all the unlicensed guys out there. just tough it out though have no other choice. lol

All the replies are from east of the Rockies I'm here in CA and in some places, home values have fallen nearly 50%. So, there is a lot less work being done. Since all I do is high end pretty much, and repairs, I'll keep busy enough. Last few months have been major slow. But landed a huge install and finish; 4000 ft + the stairs, all very custom. Next I have a remodel to line up. But my overall sales are off this year, down about 30% from 2 yrs. ago. So I just trim my expenses best I can and keep plugging along. Ran an ad for an installer on Craig's List and got over 20 replies in a couple of days. That tells me things are slow around here. Connecticut and Vermot? Wealthy homeowners there. No wonder things are good in those areas. I think the south and the west are hurting the most so far. Hope it doesn't spread. But those that heat their homes with oil will be singing the blues this winter.

Connecticut is ridiculously expensive to live in compared to many other states. But the plus side is that a large percentage of the nations wealthiest people live here along with lots of business professionals making somewhere in the 100,000.00 range. And these people feel driven to live in stylish houses or are forced to remodel existing houses as there's very little land being sold as you get close to New York City.

So the beach houses down the street from me that were worth 80 grand 15 years ago are now worth over 1 million easy. And that's just to gut and rebuild so it's like paying 1 mil for the land.

A worker from Charlotte NC told me that he had a lot of work but that their company had to drive anywhere from2 to 5 hours to get to many of the jobs.And almost all their work was new homes or wealthy people remodeling. Not much happening with the average hard working homeowner.

Ya, how is it going now, Gary??


My phone isn't ringing near as much, nor has my e-mails been what they were 2 years ago, even the spam has tapered off.

Even the DIY'er are not e-mailing me asking questions, like they use to, however I did get 3 DIY e-mails yesterday, and it made me feel wanted again! Hehehehe!

I'm working but it's slow and everyone is price shopping. All one can do is cut expenses to the bone. I'll be on this current job for awhile as the homeowner told us to pull off for 6 weeks while he had the HVAC system redone. I think we're going to be looking at hard times for awhile now.