Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Responding to a 'Smaller Marketplace'

From the Sacramento Bee:

Faced with a sluggish home construction market, Sacramento-based Beutler Heating and Air Conditioning announced Monday it will merge business operations with its Air Design Inc. affiliate to reduce overhead costs.

Beutler, one of the nation's largest residential heating and air conditioning contractors, will lay off about 45 employees at facilities in Sacramento and five other Central Valley and Bay Area locations. The combined entity, which employs about 1,200 workers, will continue as Beutler Heating and Air.

"We've been in a red-hot market. It was unsustainable. This (consolidation) will leave us in a strong position again to start growing," Beutler President Rick Wylie said.
...
Because of the slowing home construction market, it was no longer cost-effective to run two businesses operating in the same markets stretching from the Bay Area to Yuba City to Bakersfield. "We have to respond to a smaller marketplace," Wiley said.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Posting anon for confidentiality reasons -
Is anyone actually surprised that RE-related jobs are disappearing? Not me.
Today I received 19 applications for a mid-level Admin job at UCD (after HR weeded a bunch out)
Here is the breakdown:

7 with less then 1 yrs work experience
3 relocating from the Bay area
1 relocating from New York City
1 relocating from Miami
1 former furniture salesman
1 former mortgage exec assistant

And you guessed it.....
3 former realtors

One fellow went straight from working on a farm (his first job) to realtor. One of the BA expats actually said on her cover letter that she sold her place in SF and bought in Sac and needs the additional incomes. This is what the labor force here looks like.

Anonymous said...

What rubbish, why this is just a short stop on the way to new heights and riches!

There are plenty of buyers out there, they have been scared off by you malcontents! John Saca has told me that if it were not for you "loser" types here, he would have sold out his condos and about 12 more besides! "There's a pent up need and demand for more houses and condos, if only these blogocreeps would keep quiet."

We need more, more, more, more, and remember it is difficult to fly like an eagle when you live with turkeys!

We need more people willing to ask the government for bigger handouts, so we can have more, more, more 1 million dollar condos...and maybe more 3 million dollar highrise condos too!

And that how were going to be "Living Urban in Sacramento"

Anonymous said...

Okay, NoNewArena.

Rob Dawg said...

Are you now or have you ever been a member of or associated with the real estate cabal?


Sacramento more and more resembles Hiroshima about 6:14 AM one August morning about 6 decades ago. A tiny buzzing, a flash and ....

Sacramento is talking about a "smaller marketplace." What they are gonna get is unrecognizable as anything resembling a market. People are still not getting this. The wheel on the cart isn't squeaking, it has fallen off. People haven't even yet considered the local multiplier effect of realtor comissions down 30%.

Anonymous said...

Talked to my Beutler Foreman today, asked him "Where's XXXX?" He said "I sent him to the Beale AFB job- it was either that or let him go" Apparently the once high flying HVAC outfit is in SERIOUS trouble... If you talk to those of us ON THE GROUND, on the McMansion production line (Ima Const. Super for a large builder) you'll learn that THINGS ARE BAD, REAL BAD. We havent sold shit in MONTHS (Shea, Toll, Centex, JTS ALL ARE HAVING ZERO SALES, Anatolia HAS HIT A FKING BRICK WALL! EDH IS STAGNANT!

I'll be unemployed in 3-6months.

Bakersfield Bubble said...

ANON 6:28

WOW! Thanks for the insight. I wish you the best.


crispy&cole

Anonymous said...

ANON 6:28

At least you know it's coming. Start looking for new employment ASAP before you are effected!

Good luck.

Anonymous said...

Hey Gwynster, which political party do you think would be friendlier to the housing industry? I think they're both scared of what might happen to the economy if the wheels come off during this landing. The republicans, of course, will blame it on environmental laws and local regulations that impede development. The democrats will propose more programs to increase immigration and help first time home buyers. No one will say our education system is broken and we aren't saving enough.

Anonymous said...

here in sonoma county,i'm expecting a small spring bounce,and then a seizing up of the market.we are already losing significant numbers of jobs,and the buyers i see coming out in the spring are "bargain hunters" who are going to the seminars on "how to profit from the real estate correction" i have run across a couple of them already.

Anonymous said...

My carpentry foreman just laid off 10 more guys today. He works for me in EDH and his framing outfit does work for Toll, Elliot,REynen & Bardis and a few others all of the aforementioned builders have stopped all production. I asked him what all his guys were going to do. He said they'll probobly collect unemployment but he assumed that most of them have illegal sources of income anyway. (Drugs and immigrant smuggling) He told me (this guy is Hispanic BTW) that most of the mexicans supplement their incomes by renting homes they've bought with stated income loans to dozens of people (200/month per man per month with up to 16 people in a house. He said that one guy has 3 houses in the Sac area.
I can see now how the government is thinking they can grow their way out of this collapse- if they allow millions of more people in and grant amensty they'll instantly create enough buyers to put off the collapse.

Anonymous said...

The guys renting out houses to 10 to 20 people will start growing pot and cooking meth to survive once the renters go back to agriculture jobs.