HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Wed Dec 09, 2009 2:36 pm
How is the economy where you are, wherever that is? I am not asking a political question, or any deep analysis or projection, but I would like to know just what you see in your town, in perhaps the stores around you, people being hired or not, houses selling or sitting, folks out shopping, cars being bought, restaurants or movies being used?
I was able to refinance my mortgage,it took me over 4 months, but the net result was cutting my interest rate from 6 7/8 to 5%, so that helps. And my Son was able to get his job at a ski shop, no great salary, but it includes a ski pass.
Thanks for your observations.
I was able to refinance my mortgage,it took me over 4 months, but the net result was cutting my interest rate from 6 7/8 to 5%, so that helps. And my Son was able to get his job at a ski shop, no great salary, but it includes a ski pass.
Thanks for your observations.
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Wed Dec 09, 2009 3:39 pm
Other than making almost 50% less this year.., it has been 'banner'!!!!
funny.., my bills did not adjust down 50%? Neither did my kids tuition, or Verizon? I should talk to them!!!! LOL
funny.., my bills did not adjust down 50%? Neither did my kids tuition, or Verizon? I should talk to them!!!! LOL
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:09 pm
Income up for my wife due to some business dealings and a promotion at her company (working MUCH longer hours though). Mine is unchanged but some layoffs at work- mostly reductions through attrition though.
House prices still declining in So-Cal. Lots of foreclosures, although many are being held by the bank rather than being sold due to concerns over collapsing prices. Many short sales out here. If you bought a house in the last 5 years with less than 30-40% down there is no way for most to have positive equity if you needed to sell your house. I think the banks are renting those out to the "owners" while the paperwork goes through. We have been waiting for about 8 months to buy a house being sold on a short sale. Once the offer is made it takes a long time for the bank to do appraisals and verify that the owner cannot afford to pay the difference. Houses really don't seem to be sitting long though since there are some good deals out there.
Seems like there are lots of restaurants going out of business- even a local Starbucks closed when they cut back on some of the franchises.
So-Cal is a pretty crappy place for business and people are abandoning the place. Taxes are too high and regulations are too smothering. It is hard for many small businesses to keep out of the red. Charitable contributions are way down as well.
House prices still declining in So-Cal. Lots of foreclosures, although many are being held by the bank rather than being sold due to concerns over collapsing prices. Many short sales out here. If you bought a house in the last 5 years with less than 30-40% down there is no way for most to have positive equity if you needed to sell your house. I think the banks are renting those out to the "owners" while the paperwork goes through. We have been waiting for about 8 months to buy a house being sold on a short sale. Once the offer is made it takes a long time for the bank to do appraisals and verify that the owner cannot afford to pay the difference. Houses really don't seem to be sitting long though since there are some good deals out there.
Seems like there are lots of restaurants going out of business- even a local Starbucks closed when they cut back on some of the franchises.
So-Cal is a pretty crappy place for business and people are abandoning the place. Taxes are too high and regulations are too smothering. It is hard for many small businesses to keep out of the red. Charitable contributions are way down as well.
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Thu Dec 10, 2009 9:26 am
Have'nt had a raise in 6 years, price of everything going up, purchasing power going down. A lot less gravel trucks on the highway, so construction must be way down. Gas drilling is complete in the area, so very little is being done except servicing all the gas wells.
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Thu Dec 10, 2009 10:43 am
I live near Detroit......nuff said.
Unemployment is around 15% for our state and in the 30% range for Detroit. Lot's of great deals on houses in the entire area. The problem we have found (we are looking to buy a house) is that many of the foreclosures are trashed when the previous owners leave. The cost to repair often exceeds the discount on the price of the home.
When you drive by the mall or restaurants though they are always packed.
Unemployment is around 15% for our state and in the 30% range for Detroit. Lot's of great deals on houses in the entire area. The problem we have found (we are looking to buy a house) is that many of the foreclosures are trashed when the previous owners leave. The cost to repair often exceeds the discount on the price of the home.
When you drive by the mall or restaurants though they are always packed.
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:43 pm
In the SF bay Area, Im on the pennisula and housing prices in my town are on the rise. I know the big computer companies and software firms have been laying off lots of personell so our unemployment is at 12%. The cities and state are running out of money and we have the highest taxes in the country and still major debt. Personally, the auto body industry has been way down, but the past three weeks buisness is booming and I have been able to hire two addition al body techs and a paint prepper and it hasn't really rained yet. Its been a struggle this year for me but I think the sun is starting to poke through the clouds. Keith G
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:37 pm
Well... the economy for me... Sucks. I haven't been able to find a full time job in almost 3 years. I have right around I think $80k in school loans that are about to default. And I have no signs of anything getting better any time soon. So yeah, the economy sucks.
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:36 pm
Start a new job on Tuesday after being made redundant in mid-February. Those of us made redundant were long-termers. All the people with less than a year's experience stayed on.
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Fri Dec 11, 2009 11:14 pm
A friend here in YV bought a 4600 square foot house on nearly 10 acres with a corral, mountain views and a 15-car garage for 390K - bank owned and had fallen out of escrow twice - about a year ago and he thinks he still may have paid a bit too much. 
Hopefully we've hit bottom up here and can start going up again.
Hopefully we've hit bottom up here and can start going up again.
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Sat Dec 12, 2009 7:44 pm
Both me and my girlfriend are about to lose our jobs. 
Hoping someone else buys the business and rehire us. 
Hoping someone else buys the business and rehire us.
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Sun Dec 13, 2009 12:21 am
Miserable. S**tty. Unreasonable. Is this the land of opportunity? I would expect this sort of economy in Zimbabwe, not here, but didn't we recently have a communist revolution? So maybe it isn't so unexpected.
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Sun Dec 13, 2009 12:18 pm
I live in Southwest Michigan and it's been terrible here.
My dad is a custom homebuilder and he has had very little work, other than minor odds and ends. He can no longer afford to keep his own house, so he's selling and will be renting again. The housing market has shown some small signs that it might be recovering sometime in the near future, but to say that things look bleak for his business would be an understatement.
I'm going to Western Michigan University, and the state budget crisis is being felt really hard around campus. The Michigan Promise scholarship has been cut, which had previously guaranteed $4,000 to college students with passing MEAP scores. Student's families are losing jobs, etc. and quite a few of my friends have had to drop out of the university, move back home and attend community college because it's more affordable.
There have been numerous cuts in funding to public schools around the state. Local school districts are laying off teachers, or at least at the point where they need to consider it. Fortunately the district my mother works at hasn't been affected by layoffs (yet), but there's obviously a lot of concern about it in the area.
I'm majoring in journalism, and I'm not optimistic about future employment, at least in this area. There have been numerous cuts at newspapers across the state. A lot of people are being laid off. Right now, I'm trying to learn as wide of a variety of skills I can to try and make myself more marketable, but even then I'm not sure that any of these will help me when I graduate. I'm hoping that the work I've done at my internship in media public relations will somehow help me, but the overall trends in the field are very concerning.
My dad is a custom homebuilder and he has had very little work, other than minor odds and ends. He can no longer afford to keep his own house, so he's selling and will be renting again. The housing market has shown some small signs that it might be recovering sometime in the near future, but to say that things look bleak for his business would be an understatement.
I'm going to Western Michigan University, and the state budget crisis is being felt really hard around campus. The Michigan Promise scholarship has been cut, which had previously guaranteed $4,000 to college students with passing MEAP scores. Student's families are losing jobs, etc. and quite a few of my friends have had to drop out of the university, move back home and attend community college because it's more affordable.
There have been numerous cuts in funding to public schools around the state. Local school districts are laying off teachers, or at least at the point where they need to consider it. Fortunately the district my mother works at hasn't been affected by layoffs (yet), but there's obviously a lot of concern about it in the area.
I'm majoring in journalism, and I'm not optimistic about future employment, at least in this area. There have been numerous cuts at newspapers across the state. A lot of people are being laid off. Right now, I'm trying to learn as wide of a variety of skills I can to try and make myself more marketable, but even then I'm not sure that any of these will help me when I graduate. I'm hoping that the work I've done at my internship in media public relations will somehow help me, but the overall trends in the field are very concerning.
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Sun Dec 13, 2009 2:05 pm
As for what I have seen here, there are three things, all a bit on the positive side, but sort of a small slice of the economy, not really representing the broad middle. My Son was able to get a job as a ski tech, (repairs and rentals) at a ski shop in Alta, Utah. He has experience, but the pay is pretty poor, not over $10/hr. but does include a free ski pass and maybe some food discounts, etc.
Where I live, Aspen is a small town, no Wallmart or any mall , but is a major ski resort, with four ski areas, and upscale hotels. I have been up twice and so far there seem to be a fair number of people skiing. It seems to be mostly locals, our early season snow is very good, and the busy season really doen't start until just before Christmas, so it is hard to see yet how many visitors will come. My guess is a decent amount,but still down from the highs. We do have a few vacant places in town where stores have closed and that is unusal. It seemed the airport was much less full of corporate jets this summer, but they don't usally come in the off season. We will see over the next few weeks.
Yesterday I shopped at a big upscale mall in northwest Denver near BJC airport. The parking lots were mostly full, the stores were busy, but not packed. It seemed that some peopel were buying, but maybe a lot were looking.
In checking on rates for CDs at local banks, some said they really weren't lending that much, one said they expected it to pick up after the new year. I do notice lot's of ads for low mortage rates,below 5%.
Where I live, Aspen is a small town, no Wallmart or any mall , but is a major ski resort, with four ski areas, and upscale hotels. I have been up twice and so far there seem to be a fair number of people skiing. It seems to be mostly locals, our early season snow is very good, and the busy season really doen't start until just before Christmas, so it is hard to see yet how many visitors will come. My guess is a decent amount,but still down from the highs. We do have a few vacant places in town where stores have closed and that is unusal. It seemed the airport was much less full of corporate jets this summer, but they don't usally come in the off season. We will see over the next few weeks.
Yesterday I shopped at a big upscale mall in northwest Denver near BJC airport. The parking lots were mostly full, the stores were busy, but not packed. It seemed that some peopel were buying, but maybe a lot were looking.
In checking on rates for CDs at local banks, some said they really weren't lending that much, one said they expected it to pick up after the new year. I do notice lot's of ads for low mortage rates,below 5%.
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Sun Dec 13, 2009 8:29 pm
kalamazookid wrote:I live in Southwest Michigan and it's been terrible here.
I'm going to Western Michigan University, and the state budget crisis is being felt really hard around campus. The Michigan Promise scholarship has been cut, which had previously guaranteed $4,000 to college students with passing MEAP scores. Student's families are losing jobs, etc. and quite a few of my friends have had to drop out of the university, move back home and attend community college because it's more affordable.
And yet tuition keeps going up..........
Re: HOW'S THE ECONOMY FOR YOU?
Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:05 pm
As I stated above, so far my wife and I have been able to get through this situation unscathed. I was pretty desperate however back in the 1990-1992 timeframe. I call that my "period of underemployment." I got laid off and worked a lot of odd jobs from doing drafting for a small dental implant company, to aircraft mechanics, to designing room additions and doing finite element analysis for antenna towers. By the time it was over I had sold all of my toys and accrued some credit card debt and it took me about a year to get it all paid off. In total I was out of work for 22 months but was able to get by without help from my family.
The bottom line is that this is only temporary. It is hard to be prepared when you are young, but you need to build a nest egg as soon as you can to act as a buffer during hard times, especially if you have a family. I have no sympathy for people who overbought or mortgaged their houses to little or negative equity to buy toys. Most people I know who have had a personal bankruptcy got caught living above their means. Some still don't admit it and blame "the system" or "the economy" for the problems they created. You have to be realistic about things and don't give in to temptation.
I'm no expert, but that is what has worked for me so far. Might be a different story tomorrow though.
The bottom line is that this is only temporary. It is hard to be prepared when you are young, but you need to build a nest egg as soon as you can to act as a buffer during hard times, especially if you have a family. I have no sympathy for people who overbought or mortgaged their houses to little or negative equity to buy toys. Most people I know who have had a personal bankruptcy got caught living above their means. Some still don't admit it and blame "the system" or "the economy" for the problems they created. You have to be realistic about things and don't give in to temptation.
I'm no expert, but that is what has worked for me so far. Might be a different story tomorrow though.