Construction Market

[rwhitaker]

In our area of Georgia the bid market is pretty strong, however we have a lot of out of town contractors coming in giving stupid low bids. I am talking about 1/2 price. There are even a few local guys doing that. That is bad for them and it is bad for all the other contractors. It appears that the negotiated market is the way to go right now. We have picked up a few projects lately where experience has won over low price.

What is happening in other areas?

[SLVRPKR]

in the Pacific NW the public sector work is the strongest. 2 years ago there were over 30 tower cranes up in the Puget Sound area and now only 4. Commercial work is very slow. No spec work is available and many contractors are calling it quits. We saw an electrical bid come in 2 weeks ago by the same contractor for the same project bid 2 years ago at nearly half. Public bids are all coming in under engineers estimate and by a sizeable sum. When we do get job we are requesting bonds from the subs because so many are going under mid stream. Five subs went under on one job this year. You just cant cash flow when you are forced to take too few jobs too cheap.

[rwhitaker]

Some of the architects working on percentages are really getting hurt by the half price market. They still have to do the same work for basically half price. You can't do too many projects under those terms. I think most will be changing over to flat fee.

[SLVRPKR]

that or continue to cut the quality of the construction docs.