What are your comments/opinions
on where the economy is going?
Lin
Schmelzer commented that she is the first cut from the
budget when things are bad and the first added back in
when things get better.
Mark
Dreher is seeing a lot of mixed things right now.
We're seeing a lot of contractors down about 40% in
revenues. A lot of the smart people are looking at
it as an opportunity to pick up market share. They
may not be making money but they are doing good things.
Using the time to get their business act together.
Bob
Becker told us that foreclosures are 314% over last
year. The housing market will continue to dive
over the next few years. The commercial market
will go down some. Banks are not as ready to lend
money to borrowers. All these people losing their
homes are going to go out and rent somewhere. The
rental market should grow strictly based on this fact.
One
indication to Greg Stewart is store closures.
Several in his Val Vista center have closed.
Landlords got greedy. We pay a lot in rent.
Property taxes are high too.
Andy
Jensen is curious...How many think the housing market
will stay the same or go down? (majority) How many expect to
see a comeback in 3 months? (just a few)
History has shown, most of the time we
are wrong. Feds are lowing interest rates. We
could see things turn around quicker than expected.
Dave
Crissman believes we are entering a stable market.
Now we are really having to manage our business rather
than ride "the horse".
Joe
Zingale's wife is a teacher and hears stories from her
kids. They are having problems at home because
their families got into houses they couldn't afford.
Also, homes were bought for speculation and owners are
bailing out like crazy and all those homes are on the
market. On the business side, many of these
business owners have never seen an recession. They
don't know how to react to it.
Sandro
Menasci believes that the travel industry and tourism
will be up this year because of the weakness of the
dollar. And Americans probably won't be traveling
abroad. They'll spend their money here.
Bob
Busch learned at a seminar that baby boomers are coming
of age and this group has more money than any other
generation before them. They have the money so
don't be afraid to sell to them. You hear a lot of
negativity right now but there is a lot of money out there.
Chuck
Hultstrand has two comments. People that lease the
luxury cars are selling their fleets because people
don't have the money to spend on them. Someone he knows from a small Minnesota town invested in 25 homes in
the Phoenix area and can't get out of any of them.
Denver
Johnson has observed that people that spend because they
have to will start the trend of bringing us out of the
recession.
