A bit of a drive but...
I'm in Dayton, Ohio (one of the fastest dying cities in the United States)
and for a proper wage, I could be tempted to the dark side... :O)
Have fun,
Dave
--
The Great Way is very level,
but man Greatly delights in torturous paths...
-- Te, Chapter 53
-- Te Tao Ching
wrote:
Cincinnati/ N. KY area.
At the beginning of 2009 I was working for the largest local homebuilder,
and they decided to expand to the Columbus area as well in 2008 to take
advantage of the huge land deals forming as bigger builders like Centex
pulled from that area. They strugguled against their budget and planned to
operate at a 2mil loss for FY09, but the stock crash of Sept. 08 finally
caught-up with them in April, forcing the 2nd major downsizing in 2 years.
I was one of the victims on the Arch staff, which was reduced by 5 people
down to 10. Company-wide what had been a 250+ employee endeavour was now
down to, I believe, 80 employees including sales and field staff.
The other major homebuilder in the city was having similar problems and
shrunk as well, reducing their formerly 45-person national department down
to about 15 people.
Using my contacts I was able to get a position with another builder who was,
amazingly, growing in the area. They had an opportunity for a CAD Manager/
Plan developer and I leapt at it.
Evidently, the corporate HQ had replaced the former Div. Pres, in Nov '08
and the new DP was making radical changes with the intent of selling houses
"in this market" not the one from 4 years ago. The staff was reduced down 8
positions, prices slashed, salaries and subs payouts were reduced as well
with landdeals being made on individual lots, not wholesale purcahse of
subdivisions. Then, as sales volume increased hires were made slowly and
deliberatly, as the workload required.
Result: cheaper houses that are selling against a market that wasn't hit as
hard as others nationally, but was seeing a dip in value. I was just told
this morning that we're going to post a profit for the year, one of only a
couple national divisions that will do so.
We're still anxious about the next year, but think we have a plan to
continue growth or at the least maintain the staff size. The picture's not
rosy by any means but it's not bleak, either.