Let go of 30% of workforce yesterday.

Sucks. Knowing what it does to families. All the money we invested in training. Good people and very low turnover. Management all took salary cuts.

We don’t see housing recovering until 2027. The Fed allowing rates to go so low for so long and huge price increases will take years to rebalance.

We are in the housing industry. Margins have been extremely low for a while with everyone fighting for the same business. Volume has been ok until now. We are experiencing another slowdown like we did in the fall of ‘23.

Apartment/rental has been keeping us afloat while single family housing has been 60% off the last three years. Now, more and more of the planned single neighborhoods are being bought as rental developments. This shift equates to more tract style pricing/purchaing and mentality.

Two things I predict are coming that aren’t good:

1-At least a 20% further swing toward more rental versus ownership. People simply can’t afford to buy and salaries aren’t going to match the huge price swing up Covid and Fed caused any time soon.

2-You will see “rental financing”. Financing of rent over a period of time which guarantees investors but is essentially the used car model for consumers. Don’t pay, they repo you and put you for collection then rent it again and collect another deposit.

There will have to be a reshaping of the entire mortage industry and the way equity firms invest in housing.