Destruction of the Building Industry

StevieJ

Really2 wrote: »

Building industry is having a bit of a come back on the FTSE, have a look at some shares compared to there pre Christmas lows.

The stock market is obviously feeling a bit more confident about them as many have now restructured or refinanced debt.

From Wednesday

[FONT=arial,helvetica]Goldman Sachs upgrades Barratt Developments (LSE: BDEV.L - news) to a buy from a neutral, raising its target to 155p from 64p, upgrades Redrow to a neutral from a sell, raising its target to 174p from 80p, has a neutral for Bellway, raising its target to 802p from 550p, a neutral on Bovis Homes, raising its target to 504p from 331p and has a sell for Berkeley Group, raising its target to 899p from 605p.[/FONT]

leveller2911

I can't understand why some people on here seem to think the building industry revolves around Redrow,Barratts etc, there are thousands of small building firms and even more self employed sole traders, its not all about Redrow.
I am self employed, have a small joinery workshop.I have tried to keep over heads low and do not have any finance on machinery etc.I am quite lucky in having 3 months work ahead of me, but a lot of good tradesmen dont and are struggling.I get all of my work through "word of mouth" I have never advertised and word of mouth is the best way to find a tradesmen and not yellow pages in my view.

With our government doing sod all regarding training the standard of workmanship will get a lot poorer, if people think there are cowboys and bad builders out there now, just give it another 5 years and it will be even worse.
I still can't get my head around why they have put business rates UP..

mewbie_2

leveller2911 wrote: »

I still can't get my head around why they have put business rates UP..

Me neither. Surely Brown is doing all he can to help businesses? Not content with creating a complex mountain of petty rules, a nonsense VAT change to administer, he is going to continue to flog the poor dead horse until there is nothing left of it.

What did you do for us today Mr. Brown?

Really2

leveller2911 wrote: »

I can't understand why some people on here seem to think the building industry revolves around Redrow,Barratts etc, there are thousands of small building firms and even more self employed sole traders, its not all about Redrow.

True but it is hard to know all there names so the big ones are used.

Tesco, asda and sainsbuys are not the only places to buy food there are thousands of local shops but they are the ones people usualy talk about as they are the ones the mjority will recognise.

[Deleted User]

My friend's husband is a builder and is booked up for the next 12 months. Never been busier. I need him to do jobs for me but he doesn't have time? Must be the area we live in.

Thrugelmir

Van1971 wrote: »

My friend's husband is a builder and is booked up for the next 12 months. Never been busier. I need him to do jobs for me but he doesn't have time? Must be the area we live in.

Probably a fallacy to say there's no work out there. I know 2 builders in different localities. Both say its the major construction work that's dried up, extensions, new builds etc. Plenty of day jobs but not enough to keep both them and their employees busy.

bluey890

leveller2911 wrote: »

I still can't get my head around why they have put business rates UP..

I agree.

The government is content to pump money into the public sector via the BoE, whilst strangling the private sector with taxation.

If the country is to lift the economy out of trouble it's the private sector that needs to be given every opportunity to flourish through fairer taxes.

thriftybabe

bo_drinker wrote: »

Supply and demand etc etc. The greed of the punters and ease of credit fuelled it and they took advantage and then mew'd a bit further down the line for the 4x4 etc etc. Anyone supplying any product would have done the same when banks could not throw enough cash at the punters, it was a crazy situation we were in. When the !!!!!! hit the fan who went down? builders, estate agents etc. Who were propped up? the banks, the ones who were throwing money round and investing in the US sub prime situation. The banks are largely to blame for a lot of it, which is why we are where we are today. Prices ran away from the ftb'ers so what did the banks do? offer 4,5 + x income just to get them on board the merry go round, the house builder was supplying the demand as was the car dealer etc when credit was easy to obtain, by who ?? The banks

The other things is the increase in prices of houses did not feed through to subcontractors. Was shredding old books from 2002 a few weeks ago (not very busy at the moment!) and the money the subcontractors were earning back then is the same or just slightly more than now. I know we had our own prices kept the same for years with a certain large housebuilder! Our last contract (which we had signed) was reduced by a considerable amount by the builder or we were getting taken off the site!

thriftybabe

Van1971 wrote: »

My friend's husband is a builder and is booked up for the next 12 months. Never been busier. I need him to do jobs for me but he doesn't have time? Must be the area we live in.

Gosh I thought London was one of the worst for builders. Do you think they are maybe saying that so they dont have to do your work? My OH says that to get out of doing neighbours jobs!;)

tesuhoha

would_be_FTB wrote: »

I thought you might have mentioned the coal mining industry too

I apologise for being at fault there. I most certainly should have mentioned the coal mining industry.