Why havent I felt the recession in a development related job?
 

Working in the CE field and being at one of the main epicenters of the real estate fall I have only noticed a down turn in residential housing but very little in commercial & industrial. The way the headlines read I should be on welfare by now.

Am I high enough on the totem poll not to feel the effects?

Its coming Terry, I am looking around here with my mouth hanging open like I did with the housing boom. Everywhere I look more commercial space is being built yet, over 50% of the existing commercial space is sitting vacant with for lease signs up.

There is a brand new commercial building up the road from my office that is completely empty and it was finished almost a year ago. No one is renting commercial space, the funny part is its like the housing market, the buzz word is build commercial, commercial is where it is at yet all the buildings are sitting empty.

I cannot speak for your area but I suspect your probably a year or so behind us here. Take an honest look around when your driving around town, how many buildings have for lease signs out front? 50% -80% ? Here I am seeing about 90% have some sort of vacancy and right next door a new building is going up.

I would imagine you have a good 2 years before you'll notice anything. I felt my real slow down a year ago being heavily vested into the housing market, I have since hooked up with a local engineer and I am kind of busy from his work but I could use 4-5 more like him and with all the surveyors here looking for work the competition is fierce. I am not giving away my work and that is what others are doing.

BTW- I owe you a set of property corners on that commercial site, let me know when its filled and I will send a crew over to set them, it will only take about 2 hours.

Trust me, the slowdown is coming. One of our biggest clients (who is based in FL, incidentally) told us that they're chucking their plan to open 200 new stores next year and it's going to be more like 40.

Corporations aren't stupid - they see what's coming and are starting to slam on the brakes.

Commercial investment lags residential investment.

We aren't in a recession yet. A recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the GDP. We haven't seen one negative quarter.

It's also possible we see one negative quarter, then a very small positive, then a negative for a while. Technically not a recession, more of the "soft landing" Greenspan always aimed for.

+1 to all above. Residential first, commercial next.

Your area is probably different.