Construction boom

[Crestliner16]

In the past two years construction of housing complexes and large companies new to this area, like, Costco being built right behind Bj's wholesale club and a Sam's club. There are three major grocery stores and Meijers has one store nearby and they are building another one very close to where I live.
I don't quite understand how the people can afford to rent in these new apartments. I have noticed that the construction companies are all from out of state. This has been very detrimental for the local construction workers. At first the local people and tradesmen boycotted several places, but after a few years people forgot about the impact on the construction workers and gave more thought on the job opportunities.
Until recently, the minimum wage wasn't enough for people to afford paying for rent and the bare essentials. And the New Football Hall of Fame Village has uprooted families and created an almost a Circus like appearance.
I believe that this was paid for by big Sports and sponsors.
And now with increasing wages, the cost of living is even higher than before, and now add the Sports betting arena,in less than two months there is a gambling crisis on the rise.
I guess I'm just not accepting the changes that are happening so fast.
Many of the people here are not making enough money to live on their own. The prices of food alone is rising rapidly. And though we can afford it, we are changing our budget and not spending money for such things as softdrinks, what was 99 cents is now 2.29
When a store has a sale, it's just so people will think that's a deal. And then the price is even higher.I like to call that, the money trap. My cousin is very well financially and we often talk about how Buisiness is changing their models to attract people to spend more, by changing the layout so ,the longer a person is in the store, the more they will spend.

[bassnpro1]

Hi Crestliner! Welcome to 2023.

[250bassFL]

Been going on in Florida, and doesn't stop. Though being a drywaller was my trade. Mainly high rises. Did do residential plenty though through the years.
https://995qyk.com/2023/03/20/almost...-pasco-county/

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/tampa-fl

Insurance is crazy! And though it seems lots are happy with their dealings with Insurance companies, I guess I get screwed every time to make up for it. And try and get the State Insurance Regulators involved, and they just tell you except it, Insurance has done all they are obligated to do. Even though you have full coverage to the max.
Insurance is finally getting looked into in Florida now. And I think I know the only reason why now Insurance companies are finally getting looked into. All a dog and pony show, like normal with governments.

[LewStulePH.D.]

Been going on in Florida, and doesn't stop.

Problem being, the longer it continues to occur here in Florida, the closer We are to sliding into the Gulf/Ocean or down the sinkhole..

In-Lew of just building anew from places already abandoned, see strip malls up/down State, they continue to 'break ground'.. I live on an island and just recently have come across running Deer and a Fox...

enough is ample!!

[Rangerdeepv]

There are more and more intermodal centers being built near the city and suburbs here than anything else. The large semi trucks really take a toll on the roadways and infrastructure around here and can be more than challenging to dodge when driving. It is the modern society we live in now. Big money always triumphs. After seeing all the abandoned factories and older infrastructure not being used it just seems ludicrous to keep turning new dirt rather than just using what has already been turned.

[posmallie]

This has been going on forever. As long as people are willing to pay the rent, rents will stay the same or go up. I don't like it either, but I have no idea what we do about it.

Retail has been doing research for decades on how to get people to stay in the store longer, and make more impulse buys. That is nothing new, and with all of the technology we carry with us each day, the marketing is only getting better.

[bzbrent]

Hi Crestliner! Welcome to 2023.

Exactly.

Local trades either need to find another trade, or step up their game to compete with the "big boys."

Get better, or go home.

-b-

[Meadows]

Most franchised companies use a pre-selected list of general contractors throughout the country to build their new facilities and/or renovate an existing space for their new facility. The GC will be selected based on which region the new facility will be in. The GC will send in a superintendent from out of town and the project will be managed from their home office. Occasionally the GC will use local subcontractors if they do enough price shopping, but for the most part they have select subs that they use. The jobs will happen before most local construction trades are even aware.

[spinningreel]

So construction jobs, new and more housing options are now a bad thing?

[jmcarrol]

Are the local construction crews unionized? That could be a reason to bring in out of town crews.

[XingEyeballs]

I’ll bite…So here a view from another side
I work for large contractor in the trades that does a huge volume of supermarket work. Their(Costco, Target, Walmart, Aldi, etc) most common challenge when going into a new area is finding qualified trades that can install, service, and maintain today’s systems effectively and efficiently so we are constantly being asked to go farther and support a bigger service area because of their needs. I’m not specifically speaking for your local trades, I don’t know them, but I deal with local contractors all the time that don’t want to change/learn/adapt their business to be competitive and then complain about their work dying off to “the guys from out of town”.

As for the consumer strategy and cost of goods, that’s completely unrelated. Retailers both brick and mortar and online have always been trying to figure out how to get you to spend more time shopping and spend more. The inflated cost currently is a product of something else entirely and is nationwide if not worldwide.

[Stratos81]

If there was no economic growth, your 401k/pensions would never grow….

[dwtaylor]

I am not against growth, but I am against poor zoning, permitting, and tax rebate/incentive management local and state governments have a tendency to get themselves into.

We have seen it time and time again in Wisconsin that property management and manufacturing corporations pitch economic growth to the local and state level governments in an effort to get a kick back or tax rebate while the economic impact has not even remotely reached the claims they sold those governments.

My town has a tendency to have a near unlimited appetite for new construction permit approvals, yet has a tendency to ignore the vacant commercial property. The reality locally is that the more vacant commercial property that is available in the region, the big box stores and other commercial establishments can have their property values lowered due to the lower property tax these vacant properties hold. This can save these businesses tens of thousands of dollars per property.

The city then mismanages these assessments and budgets match resulting in a higher tax bill for the residential property tax payer. This trickles down into single and multi family dwellings as well, jacking up their taxes and therefore rent. I am super stoked driving by 5+ new commercial property starts and 10+ vacant commercial properties on my way to work while my property tax bill is up 42% since 2018.

[NitroZ7]

Wait 6-12 months. Banks are liquidity starved and they will not be making loans. It is likely that rents will be falling and that real estate development will be slowing as loans become very expensive or hard to get. This will also involve a rise in unemployment. There has been such a surge in apartment construction that we may see an excess soon. There was a large construction company in Florida that just laid off quite a bit of its workers. We saw the same thing in 2007 and then it went the other way very quick. The problem is rents feel and home prices fell but a lot of people lost their jobs so the falling prices didn't really help them much.

[nmaxwell0003]

I’ll bite…So here a view from another side
I work for large contractor in the trades that does a huge volume of supermarket work. Their(Costco, Target, Walmart, Aldi, etc) most common challenge when going into a new area is finding qualified trades that can install, service, and maintain today’s systems effectively and efficiently so we are constantly being asked to go farther and support a bigger service area because of their needs. I’m not specifically speaking for your local trades, I don’t know them, but I deal with local contractors all the time that don’t want to change/learn/adapt their business to be competitive and then complain about their work dying off to “the guys from out of town”.

As for the consumer strategy and cost of goods, that’s completely unrelated. Retailers both brick and mortar and online have always been trying to figure out how to get you to spend more time shopping and spend more. The inflated cost currently is a product of something else entirely and is nationwide if not worldwide.

I’m not a large outfit by any means but tradesmen that don't welcome growth in their community are idiots. In my experience, anyone that complains about another
crew coming into town usually aren’t good enough to keep themselves busy, and right now you just have to be half good to stay covered up. It’s insane how much work is out there to be had. Those grocery stores moved in because you’re increasing in population which is good for everyone from a handy man to a large commercial GC. Don’t fight change because you’ll lose every time.

[tcesni]

So construction jobs, new and more housing options are now a bad thing?

Apparently so for some folks. Unreal.

[Bassin_7]

I am not against growth, but I am against poor zoning, permitting, and tax rebate/incentive management local and state governments have a tendency to get themselves into.

We have seen it time and time again in Wisconsin that property management and manufacturing corporations pitch economic growth to the local and state level governments in an effort to get a kick back or tax rebate while the economic impact has not even remotely reached the claims they sold those governments.

My town has a tendency to have a near unlimited appetite for new construction permit approvals, yet has a tendency to ignore the vacant commercial property. The reality locally is that the more vacant commercial property that is available in the region, the big box stores and other commercial establishments can have their property values lowered due to the lower property tax these vacant properties hold. This can save these businesses tens of thousands of dollars per property.

The city then mismanages these assessments and budgets match resulting in a higher tax bill for the residential property tax payer. This trickles down into single and multi family dwellings as well, jacking up their taxes and therefore rent. I am super stoked driving by 5+ new commercial property starts and 10+ vacant commercial properties on my way to work while my property tax bill is up 42% since 2018.

Part of the reason these large, national retailers have a hard time finding quality local trades for jobs is because they (the incoming contractor and/or retailer) are CHEAP! We do not even bother bidding those projects because they are not worth our time or effort. Not to mention the schedules that they project/promise to the customer are usually unrealistic. Especially in todays environment of extremely long lead times. Hell, we still have GC's that look at us like we are from another planet when we tell them 50 to 60 weeks on new service gear. They tell us that won't work. Then, they exhaust all of their resources and find that we were in fact telling them the truth!

On a side note........

In this area, a lot of municipalities now are requiring new, multi-tenant buildings to have the first floor allocated to retail space. So we now have a large number of brand new, very nice $1800 to $3000 a month apartments, with absolutely nothing on the first level. It is a joke.

[Meadows]

Part of the reason these large, national retailers have a hard time finding quality local trades for jobs is because they (the incoming contractor and/or retailer) are CHEAP! We do not even bother bidding those projects because they are not worth our time or effort. Not to mention the schedules that they project/promise to the customer are usually unrealistic. Especially in todays environment of extremely long lead times. Hell, we still have GC's that look at us like we are from another planet when we tell them 50 to 60 weeks on new service gear. They tell us that won't work. Then, they exhaust all of their resources and find that we were in fact telling them the truth!

On a side note........

In this area, a lot of municipalities now are requiring new, multi-tenant buildings to have the first floor allocated to retail space. So we now have a large number of brand new, very nice $1800 to $3000 a month apartments, with absolutely nothing on the first level. It is a joke.

We don't bid on the retail jobs either, for the same reason you mentioned. I've purposefully tried to get a few of them just to see what the market was like. I've put in prices to gut existing restaurants for something like $2.50/SF which is insanely cheap and still wasn't the low bid. But most of these jobs are halfway done before I'm even aware they are happening.

[TNsmalliesfan]

I moved from working in a big major city to Nashville TN two years ago.When I started my new job it was a culture shock to say the least.It was like going back in time,everyone was so layer back and didn’t seem to give a chit.Also I noticed the guys had little interest in putting out quality work.Within a year two big company from where I originally came from move in and took on contracts with big store and contstruction projects.Well needless to say I jumped ship,and now all my co workers are from other big cities.Business is booming and the locals are stuck in the mud.

[Crestliner16]

Wasn't home insurance in Florida run by off shore companies at one time?