Things are that Bad...!!

[trebor]

Hi... my firm of plumbers had 200 guys on just before Christmas....and a £1,000,000 per month turnover...

Now.... were down to 48, with a really good chance to company is going down. The remainder had a letter today, me included...

Saying, that as the buisness is still in so much trouble 10 more have to go. So we're all up at the office at various times this week to plead for our jobs..

The credit crunch.... there having a laugh, we're in full blown recession. Its not the firms fault, the builders can't sell whats been built already, and sp have walked away, for now anyway all ongoing works. All the builders have layed off site agents and staff....

So... we'll just have to wait and see..

So,... You don't recommend me to re-train as a plumber then

[NeilP]

[NotDeadYet]

I've been self-employed for the last ten years... now I've just today accepted a proper job in a real office. As a tight bastard with a pathological resentment of any authority that, for me, is a bad sign of the times as I cannot stand working for other people, paying tax or having responsibility. I give it a month before I get sacked or walk out

Before Christmas I was turning work down every few days. Now I sometimes don't even bother taking my phone with me. The government has successfully allowed the general construction industry to collapse by letting housebuilders become today's equivalent of 80's stockbrokers.

Cheers,

Stuart

[CotoChris]

I thought that house prices are double edged sword. If the prices are high as they were fewer people could afford one, now they have gone down I would have thought the demand would go up, however with consumer confidence looks like no one is buying. Is it the case the where people are not buying or they can not get a mortage from the banks?

[Digger]

Banks won't give you a mortgage at a reasonable rate even with a deposit, house prices are falling but the first time buyers don't have the money yet to be able to buy in.

Also, people like me who could happily get a mortgage and a house are waiting for the housing market to properly crash before we buy in - if you catch it now there's definite negative equity coming, but if I catch it just before it recovers I get a good deal and the value of the property should increase quickly once we bounce back.

My current estimates put it at approx 2 years before that's going to happen. As long as I can continue saving up I can buy a house at this point easily. I'm aiming for a 5 bed detatched in Notting Hill. Should get that for £150,000

Personally we need a bit of recession to balance things up again, but if this goes as badly as some previous recessions we'll be in trouble. I'd like to see Gordon say "you know what, I'm in the wrong job" and get back to Chancellor to deal with this, and then find someone with some charisma to try and rescue Labour so we don't end up with a Tory government, I've seen what a recession under them did, and not convinced I want to see things that bad again!

Digs.

[West Ireland Diver]

I feel for anyone losing their jobs. But the housing market was completely unsustainable and has to correct itself. It was just insane the amount of housing that was being built and then estate agents/builders picking a number out of thin air to price it at.

Banks shouldn't have lent people such large amounts of money at tiny interest rates (2% here in Ireland at one point) knowing they would struggle when rates go up.

I own a house and I'm lucky enough not to have a particularly big mortgage and I'm not in negative equity (yet), but looking around at some of my friends it guts me to see the struggle that's happening.

[NotDeadYet]

I'd like to see Gordon say "you know what, I'm in the wrong job" and get back to Chancellor to deal with this

I don't think he was a particularly good chancellor, it's easy to be good in a good climate. The state of the government's coffers shows he was doing exactly what he was berating all of us for, spending without saving. His policies were fair weather policies.

But the housing market was completely unsustainable and has to correct itself. It was just insane the amount of housing that was being built and then estate agents/builders picking a number out of thin air to price it at.

I work in the construction industry and avoided resi work like the plague. I stopped doing residential projects about five years ago when I saw how much of central Manchester they were building apartments on. The only market even back then was buy to let which is an artificial market. If real people don't want to buy apartments then there is no market. It would have happened without the sub-prime mortgage problem in the US, it was accepted practice that banks and buy to let owners would invent figures in order to get mortgages through and regularly lie to the Land Registry on prices. One developer told me that he'd sold half a dozen apartments to a 25yr old office worker and the bank never batted an eyelid. No-one ever seemed to question where all the people who were going to inhabit all these apartments were going to come from... Also forgetting the lessons of the 1970's that left town centres as wastelands...

The BIG downside is that the stupidity which the government knew was happening in residential has screwed over the rest of the construction sectors. There has been so much damage that all the other sectors are in trouble because neither the funding nor the confidence is there for more capital or infrastructure projects.

Agree or disagree with nuclear, petrochem or the military but they are going to be the sectors that are going to keep a construction industry going in the UK over the next two years. Unless the government decides to do a massive public works programme as they did in the US in the 1930's but there's no money in the pot despite taxing fuel to buggery.

Cheers,

Stuart

[Paulus]

Right now I'm finding that some work already booked is getting cancelled. Mostly for one of two reasons. The customer is afraid to spend or can't afford the work after all. Or someone has since offerd to do the job for free/beer/sex/bastardry.

Just to cheer me up I've just come home to our biggest gas and electric bills ever.

Poor old Gordie might be having a hard time in his new job but I bet he wouldn't like it over on this side of reality.

Paul

[AlanP]

Did they lay off the British or Polish guys first?

[Charley]

Building site work here in South Wales is quieting off, i am not as busy as i was 3 months ago.

We will have to see what happens next, otherwise my LDS will see a lot more of me drinking their coffee.