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Thread: Economic report of what I am seeing

  1. #1

    Economic report of what I am seeing

    I am currently down in Florida along the gold coast, and I am selling and managing a commercial roofing company, and since I've been here there are few things I've been noticing.

    1) Commercial property owners always use Property Managers, who usually don't know a damn thing about buildings, and they are recommending repairs on roofs that are in danger of collapsing, and I include this in many of my proposals. In fact I almost had a crew fall in, when a section of roof collapsed recently, yet they don't have the money or won't spend it. Something to think about going into older built shopping plazas. The time it happened with my crew, there was nobody in the actual unit but the entire roof fell in.

    2) The roofing supply companies, unique to the trade, that carry products you cannot buy anywhere else, are not doing good at all. In fact they are closing stores, and letting employees go, and currently a monopoly is forming in this niche. Currently prices are rising on everything all of the time, and fewer products are available as well. Also certain special orders are on very long delays, why? I don't know, and nobody has that answer.

    3) Many roofing companies are going out of business, those with the best reputations too, however they don't close over night, they take time to wind down, due to debt accrued. Many re-roof projects are bid now at below cost, and therefore the better roofing companies will not bid like that, since it is desperation. The companies that do are trying to stay alive, but also have lousy reputations.

    4) The best roofers are beginning to do more side jobs as well on their own.

    Watching all of this first hand, while thinking about economics, I have concluded that we are not in a free market but a very manipulated controlled market, worse than I thought. Because in a free market, the best companies survive til the end. Maybe I'm missing something, that is why I am posting this.... what is your take?



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  3. #2
    I was just telling my wife the other day that I think we're at a moment in history where we've got more squarefootage under roofs than we can support economically.

    Do any sod over 60mil EDPM?

    'We endorse the idea of voluntarism; self-responsibility: Family, friends, and churches to solve problems, rather than saying that some monolithic government is going to make you take care of yourself and be a better person. It's a preposterous notion: It never worked, it never will. The government can't make you a better person; it can't make you follow good habits.' - Ron Paul 1988

    Awareness is the Root of Liberation Revolution is Action upon Revelation

    'Resistance and Disobedience in Economic Activity is the Most Moral Human Action Possible' - SEK3

    Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

    ...the familiar ritual of institutional self-absolution...
    ...for protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment...


  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by presence View Post
    I was just telling my wife the other day that I think we're at a moment in history where we've got more squarefootage under roofs than we can support economically.

    Do any sod over 60mil EDPM?
    I have come to that conclusion, that is why I am saying people should be warned of going into plazas that are older than say 30 years? Because you can't walk on some of them, and how their roof is even being held up is by tar and paper most likely. Scary if this economy stays the way it is much longer.

    We mostly see mop down, fibertite and plastic roofs down here, up in the north I sold and managed for a commercial roofing company for a couple of years and there we saw everything including epdm (mostly exclusive to the north though it seems, or so I am told). Here it's mostly torch down being applied and fibertite..

    Where are you and what do you do?

  5. #4
    carpenter, plumber, electrician in the north east. Structural issues aside, scary is the cob job state of electricity I run into. I'm surprised this country isn't burning down, let alone falling down.

    I have an interest in green building and I'm going to take on a "green roof project" on a personal structure at some point; I need a carport and a barn... we'll see what comes first. I have residential experience with dimensional, 3 tab, metal. Maybe 3-400 square in total. I make my living on traditional modern building techniques, but I've been slipping in contracts or personal projects along the way for green building, off grid systems, etc. My heat source in my home is a passive draft wood boiler that runs a thermosiphon hydronic system. I have heat when the power is out, and the boiler is outside.

    'We endorse the idea of voluntarism; self-responsibility: Family, friends, and churches to solve problems, rather than saying that some monolithic government is going to make you take care of yourself and be a better person. It's a preposterous notion: It never worked, it never will. The government can't make you a better person; it can't make you follow good habits.' - Ron Paul 1988

    Awareness is the Root of Liberation Revolution is Action upon Revelation

    'Resistance and Disobedience in Economic Activity is the Most Moral Human Action Possible' - SEK3

    Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

    ...the familiar ritual of institutional self-absolution...
    ...for protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment...


  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by presence View Post
    carpenter, plumber, electrician in the north east. Structural issues aside, scary is the cob job state of electricity I run into. I'm surprised this country isn't burning down, let alone falling down.

    I have an interest in green building and I'm going to take on a "green roof project" on a personal structure at some point; I need a carport and a barn... we'll see what comes first. I have residential experience with dimensional, 3 tab, metal. Maybe 3-400 square in total. I make my living on traditional modern building techniques, but I've been slipping in contracts or personal projects along the way for green building, off grid systems, etc. My heat source in my home is a passive draft wood boiler that runs a thermosiphon hydronic system. I have heat when the power is out, and the boiler is outside.
    Green-roofs or really some type of new roof should be invented very soon, there is alot of money involved with commercial roofing and you would think with all of the problems with leaks with existing roofs, there would be something more economical and environmentaly friendly as well. Isn't the Rouge Ford Plant in Dearborn, MI, the largest sod roof in the world too?

  7. #6
    As a note of what I've seen where I'm at. There seems to be a lot of money being printed up and getting into the hands of property owners for repairs.

    We had new owners come through our apartment complex a while back. They repaired and repainted the place from one end to the other. Top to bottom. Asphalt to the eaves.

    A couple of years later new owners came in and redid it all again plus new amenities. I suppose from their end it made some sort of sense. From the renters end we were already paying all we could seem to muster. Now they are pricing us out. I don't know of anyone getting increases in their pay checks. I'm not sure where the new tenets will come from. I guess it will be multiple families in single family apartments.

    Lots of people are moving out around me. Many have been here for a long time.

    The last census showed the prices have fallen in the area.

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Michigan11 View Post
    Isn't the Rouge Ford Plant in Dearborn, MI, the largest sod roof in the world too?
    Yes. I was just in there the other day. Too bad it also sits on top of some of the most toxic soil in the world.
    Dishonest money makes for dishonest people.

    Andrew Napolitano, John Stossel. FOX News Liberty Infiltrators.


    Quote Originally Posted by Inkblots View Post
    Dr. Paul is living rent-free in the minds of the neocons, and for a fiscal conservative, free rent is always a good thing
    NOBP ≠ ABO



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