re: Cost to build after mass deportations

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Also, they normally work as “subs” under a different company that the construction company hires but yes the companies need to be targeted too.

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Correct. They way it's done is a legal immigrant sets up a legit business with insurance and staffs it with illegals, then does 1099 work for the contractor. Contractor can claim it's the responsibility of the 1099 owner to verify legal status. DoL, IRS, and DHS have all tried to close loopholes on this, but it still happens all day everyday.

This mostly will affect lower-skill trades and positions. Dry-wallers, landscapers, masonry, concrete, cleaners, roofing, etc. Anywhere you need a team of non-skilled guys to do grunt work, it's mostly illegals.

I'm in the glass/glazing trade, and there are tons of illegals on the commercial glazing side of things. Less so residentially. It's frustrating to lose bids to companies you know are using illegal workers. For example, my loaded payroll cost is close to $50/hr for commercial glaziers (skilled, with taxes & benefits), whereas a contractor using illegals can do the same for $25/hr. Not to mention those guys don't pay overtime rates. There is no way to compete against that.

What's sad is a lot of these guys want to be legal. Not all, but a lot. You talk to them and hear their stories, and some of it's heartbreaking. They left horrible places. They want to be American. We should want them to be American. They want to provide safe place to raise their families and contribute to society. It's just the bad apples that spoil the bunch. Get rid of them. Got a record at home or here? Bye. Not working? Bye.

I have a Colombian guy that was a police officer back home. He said he was given a choice one day: go on the cartel payroll or have him and his family killed. He packed up his family the next day and got the hell out of there. A Venezuelan guy I employ owned a chain of auto mechanic shops. He worked from the bottom up and made a damn good living for his family. The government came in and seized his assets in the name of socialism. A Syrian I employee owned a glass company in Damascus. He was not a fan Assad, and Assad was not a fan of him. One day a missile lands on his warehouse, and a week later he's on a shitty boat in the middle of the Mediterranean trying to get him and his family to safety. Note that all of these guys are now legal, but they didn't start legal.

That's every day life for these people. It's easy to say "well, they should fix their own shithole," but it's not so simple. Look at Mexico, where the president is a cartel puppet, or Venezuela where it's run by a socialist authoritarian. Those aren't easy or quick fixes. But what about places like El Salvador and Argentina? Aren't they fixing it? Yeah, but it's been very hard for them. It's been interesting to watch them. It's still very early in their reforms, but it gives me a little hope.

Sorry, I rambled a little into PT territory and said a little more than OP asked. :inb4TDSfromtheusuals:

The easiest thing to do is change our immigration laws and make work visas easy. I work around many that operate with these same migrants and the loopholes are astounding. Background checks, legal to work, get paid the same as americans, and if they frick up or over stay swiftly get them deported.

The house building industry is stuck in the past. If there is an actual shortage of labor, there are many building methods that can drastically reduce labor.

An example of one you might already know about is factory built trusses. I don't know if you've noticed the adoption of Zip sheathing in your area, but it has become very common where I live. When I built my house 12 years ago, all you got was the 1000 yard stare if you mentioned it.

There are robotic brick layers, Structural Insulated Panels, Poured Concrete Walls, many variations on panelized construction or modular construction, shotcrete walls, etc, etc, that have been around for a long time but builders have not adopted because Granite and Hardwood sells houses and advanced construction techniques don't.

If there's a real shortage, these methods will be adopted, plus more.

Don't you think it would be kind of easy to build a robot to lay shingles? Not all shingles, but vast majority of them, leaving the detail areas for manual labor. The biggest problem to solve there is packaging the shingles such that a robot could dispense and position them properly. Automatic nailing is already in broad use. Different and compatible roofing products would be developed for the detail areas (ridge, valleys, etc), and some of them probably exist today.

Alternatively, a metal roof might become more cost effective.