Housing-related businesses feel the pinch

It is not a good year to have a small business related to the housing market, according to Raleigh, N.C.-based Sageworks, which gathers proprietary financial data on privately held companies nationwide.

Nationwide, sales are slumping for those selling, building and furnishing houses. With home loans stalled, real estate agents, lumber wholesalers, concrete manufacturers, furniture stores and residential construction companies account for five of the bottom 10 industries by sales growth over the last 12 months.   

Sales changes by industry included real estate agents and brokers, down 8%;  lumber wholesalers, 7%; cement/concrete manufacturing, 5%; furniture stores, 1%, and residential construction, 1%. Frankly I'm surprised the drops aren't more for all those industries but no doubt they'll continue in that direction for a while. 

Rounding out the bottom 10 were sawmills and wood preservation, down 7%; credit intermediation, 5%; radio and TV broadcasting, 2.25%; motor vehicle, parts and supplies wholesalers, 1.5%, and building materials and supplies dealers, 1.5%.

-- Lauren Beale

Your thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Keith]

This is only the second inning. We've got at least another year to go.

Thanks for destroying America, George W. Bush.

[Jim]

I wonder if this means the cost of lumber is finally going to come back down out of the stratosphere, or if they're going to keep prices high and beg for a bailout...

[The Original RZ]

Despite this, Home Depot is still trying to bully their way into neighborhoods that don't want them.

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

I am just wondering, but where does the scam artist industry fit in? Is it in the top 5 growth list?

On a side note, I watched a great documentary eariler this year called the Natural History of the Chicken. In the movie, there was a headless chicken who lived many happy months after losing its head. How, I don't know. In any case, I was young, innocent and naive then. And I thought to myself, wow, that's amazing. Never thought it possible. How very unusual and rare.

But now, only a few months later, and I am not longer young, innocent nor naive, I realize headless chickens are a dime a dozen. They are everywhere. You see them running around all over, on Wall Street, in government, you name it.

[Kevin Schmidtchen]

It goes to show how much of our culture attaches value to their individual homes as both security and an investment. When people feel house poor (which is becoming more and more these days), its effects are felt seemingly everywhere.