SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Home Depot's Sales Rebound Muted by Inflation in Fuel and Lumber
Home Depot Inc.'s sales rebounded last quarter as Americans took on more remodeling projects, but rising costs for lumber and transportation are weighing on profitability.
[...] Home Depot and its smaller rival Lowe's Cos. are often seen as proxies for the health of the housing sector because property owners spend more on their homes when they believe values are rising. But for several quarters there's been increasing concern that years of robust home-price gains are cooling. For its part, Home Depot has continually said that a shortage of available homes in many markets would actually underpin higher home-improvement spending.
[...] Even as the overall housing market looks to be cooling, several trends are driving demand for home-improvement products. A shortage of available listings has slowed property purchases, causing some owners to opt for sprucing up their homes instead. Additionally, more people are staying longer in their homes, which also supports the uptick.
The labor market also plays a role: A strong run of hiring, coupled with moderate wage growth, has boosted Americans' wherewithal to spend money on fixing up their homes. Spending on home improvement -- which accounts for about 38 percent of private residential construction outlays -- surged 13.8 percent in June from a year earlier to reach $221 billion, according to Commerce Department data. Going forward, the job market may continue to propel housing and remodeling demand. But potential hurdles include a pickup in mortgage rates, a shortage of skilled workers for building and remodeling projects, and rising costs for construction materials such as lumber, which is affected by tariffs.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @06:48AM (4 children)
Did they ditch the Bush-loving asshole that was the CEO of Home Despot? He talked down to investors, never a good idea, and fucked over his employees, only sometimes a good idea. But in any case, I never will shop there, given the political orientation of the corporation. Lowe's all the way! Costco over Sam's Slavery! Hee-Haw! But now to the real issue. Will submissions like this grow the membership of SoylentNews? Have we even cracked uid of 7000? Why are there no submissions? Where are the aristarchus submissions? I want something about the alt-right, not something about the hardware-right!
(Score: 4, Funny) by turgid on Wednesday August 15 2018, @12:44PM
There's nothing like a good Aristarchus submission to get the alt-wrong and their sympathisers all worked up into an entertaining tantrum.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday August 15 2018, @04:38PM (1 child)
I made a Sub about our wonderful Economy. About the 157,000 NEW JOBS in July. That's according to my Bureau of Labor Statistics, my BLS. Straight from the horse's mouth. Can we call that a mouth? Why not! But, rejected by @janrinok because of "political bias" and "unnecessary '!' characters in your headlines." He calls that character. And he told me, the Editors won't read my Subs because of that. The Exclamation Point -- I call it Exclamation Point -- says, "this is exciting!" And who wants to read news that isn't exciting? Very boring people, that's who! And by the way, how do they know an Exclamation Point is unnecessary without reading the Sub? They run so many stories with a Question Mark in the headline. And there's always someone that says, "oh, law of question marks in headline, the answer is always NO." They know the answer. So probably the question was unnecessary, right? Question Mark is OK, apparently it's OK. But Exclamation Point, not OK? Dumb!!!! And it's a pathetic excuse to not read, to reject without reading. Very easy, I assume, for an Editor to change an Exclamation Point to a Question Mark. Or to a nothing. It's called editing. And isn't that a big big part of what you have Editors for? But, they spend a lot of their time finding stories. And submitting stories. Because sometimes they like their own Subs better than ours. I guess it's like children. Your woman gets pregnant, always you wonder, "will it look like me?" And when it doesn't, that's one of the worst things that can happen. For a guy or for a couple. Although, some guys like it. That's their hobby. Some guys play polo. Some -- like me -- collect very valuable paintings, or play a spectacular game of golf. And some share their women with other men. Raise other men's children, they call it Cuckoldry. I call it cuckoo!!!
Political bias, I'll tell you about political bias. You had a guy that called himself OriginalOwner. Remember him? It wasn't long ago, maybe you remember. And he made so many Subs from Think Progress. From the World Socialist. From Alternet. The websites of our alt-left. Way way left, beyond the Dems if you can believe that. And some of them got posted. One of the last ones that got posted, @janrinok put that one up. And he edited it, he wrote something like, "all governments lie." And the story is, supposedly my economists lied and something my Bureau of Labor Statistics said, changed around by the very far left websites, supposedly proves they lied. Very dumb story, economists aren't psychics. And they're not scientologists. They're entertainers, they don't know what will happen in our economy. They're guessing. You can go to Coney Island, you can ask Zoltar the robot. The psychic robot. And his guess will be just as good as an economist's. And possibly Zoltar will guess wrong. Do you call it a lie? I wouldn't call it a lie. He says something that comes true, very entertaining. It doesn't come true, not so entertaining. That's all. What Zoltar says is strictly for entertainment purposes. And it's the same with economists. But, my economists predicted something that didn't come true. And it's news, it's SoylentNews.
You're supposed to believe what my BLS says -- the alt-left spin on what my BLS says -- when it makes me look bad. Sub accepted, edited, and posted. But when my BLS say something that makes me look fabulous, the Editors don't read it. Don't edit it. And don't post it. Because, political bias. Because, Exclamation Point!
Well, maybe I should close BLS. And let Home Depot tell the story of our beautiful Economy. Because the Fake SoylentNews says all governments lie. Uses the info from my BLS to "prove" that. And BLS costs a lot of money. I can close it. And give that money back to our Corporations & other taxpayers. Which will be fantastic for our economy.
OriginalOwner, he stopped his Subs. And he stopped tweeting. Our thoughts & prayers are with him. But possibly he got hurt very badly. He's alt-left, their rallies can be very violent. Lot of problems with alt-left violence. With Black Identity Extremism. But some fine people too. On many sides.
And @aristarchus still comes to your website. He still tweets. Very few tweets. Nothing like he used to. But I don't see his Subs. Sometimes I look at the Subs Queue -- so nice that they put the link to that. And I used to see his Subs. Very easy to see because they would sit for a LONG time. Now I don't see them. And possibly the Editor Robot rejects them immediately. It rejects mine after a week or two. Something like that. Or possibly he stopped making them. Because he's busy with Documents. Like I am. Or maybe his mental finally went kaput. He never talked about it. But I can tell he's crazy. Challenged, if you want to be politically correct. They call it challenged, right? He said the Editors accepted 12% -- I think it was 12% -- of his Subs. And even the 12% was TERRIBLE. In my opinion, terrible. And so many people said, "this guy is crazy, why did you put that story up?!"
He's alt-right, he's not one of their best people. I can tell you're a big fan of him, but our alt-right has much better guys. Look at @TrumpBikers [twitter.com], there's some fabulous guys. Very strong, very tough. And 200 of them visited me at my Southern White House on Saturday. To celebrate the anniversary of Unite the Right. MUCH BIGGER CROWD, frankly, than at Unite the Right 2. Because of me. Believe me, if I'd gone to Unite the Right 2, it would have been a tremendous crowd there. It was very tiny, I heard it was 20 guys from our alt-right. And more from our alt-left. Bedminster, 10 times as many. And our alt-left, unfortunately, didn't come. We united the right -- me and Bikers for Trump. Big success. While Jason K. failed horribly. But, we wish him luck. We wish him success. Last year he was very successful, he made a terrific splash. Next year, who knows, maybe I'll come to his event. And bring tremendous ratings. I'm the Ratings Machine, it's amazing. I'm amazing!!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday August 15 2018, @04:54PM
(cont) Here's the link to my BLS. With the VERY POSITIVE news about the 157,000 NEW JOBS in July. They call it nonfarm. Because our Farmers, they have a lot of work in the spring. A lot in the summer. Some in the fall. Not much in winter. It goes up and down, up and down with our beautiful Seasons. Like we do when we make whoopie. The in & out. So my BLS looks at the other jobs. They didn't forget our wonderful Farmers. They leave them out for a reason. So folks won't think, "oh, it's up, oh it's down, oh it's up again" just because we're having seasons. The facts is, it's up and down, up and down. But the alternative facts is, it's up, up, up. Good news. Great news.
But, some folks don't want to hear good news. Especially not from my government. They go, "oh, all governments lie." And they like bad news, no matter how Fake or politically biased. Very negative attitude. Sad! bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/nonfarm-payroll-employment-increased-157000-in-july-2018.htm [bls.gov]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @12:08AM
i am not sure if the fact that he 'loved bush' is a problem.
i love bush, too, but the telly savalas look is good as well.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:09PM (4 children)
Playing right along with the Home Depot survey results...
After 10 years living in our 1960's ranch, we are looking at some major renos. The kitchen was last done in the mid-80s, based on the paperwork left from the original owners and the age of the built-in range/oven. Currently the laundry is in the basement, we might go as far as revising the half-bath that is next to the kitchen to make room for small clothes washer/dryer, making the house "single floor living" (leaving the large capacity washer & dryer in the basement for occasional use). While we have no problems going up and down stairs now, that could easily become a problem in the future. And if we sell, single floor living seems to be a good selling point.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:25PM (2 children)
I live in a second floor apartment.
I own a piano that is in storage that my mother has been paying for. I'm going to get it shipped to my home soon, where I plan to put it in my garage until I can find a first-floor apartment.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @01:35AM (1 child)
Laurel and Hardy deliver pianos.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday August 16 2018, @04:10PM
When I called them I told them I had a piano. "We have a piano dolly".
When they actually put my piano on it I could see that they'd never used their dolly before. The came quite close to dropping my piano off the ramp up to the u-haul.
Since then I've always taken care to use _real_ piano movers.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:27PM
That seems to be a minor point missing in the analysis of TFA. The emphasis there seems to be "if people are staying longer in their homes or can't find a new home, they'll spend more on remodeling." I have no doubt that's true and perhaps the most significant driver here.
But one of the other significant reasons home owners undertake renovations is BECAUSE they are trying to sell. Lots of people "live with" inconveniences in their homes, but then when they go to sell, they (or their agent) says, "Uh, we're going to have to fix that, because anyone who takes a tour will notice it." Or stuff shows up that a building inspector would flag -- or the house goes into sale, but an inspection report flags it, and the seller has to agree to fix it. Or whatever.
Often these are minor things. But sometimes a minor "crack" somewhere can be indicative of a larger problem, which then needs to be solved before selling. Point is: sales at Home Depot likely don't just come from those who are staying in their homes, but also those who are really desperate to leave.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:20PM (11 children)
Some told me that there are more empty houses than there are homeless people. Can I find a [needed citation]? Here's one [mintpressnews.com]:
There are lots more pages that discuss the large ratio of empty houses to homeless people.
One source of this problem is that many of those empty houses are owned by banks as a result of foreclosure. Those banks are just sitting on them until they can be sold for at least as much as is required for the banks to break even on the bad mortgages.
What I fail to understand is why the banks don't rent them out. Among the causes of homelessness is that there just aren't enough rentals. In Vancouver, Washington where I live, the rental vacancy rate is less than one percent. It's worse in Portland Oregon.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:47PM (1 child)
Have you ever been a landlord? If you had, you'd probably understand why.
You may be the sort of person who is a responsible tenant. Most people are not. They don't pay rent on time. They don't take care of the rental property or inform the landlord if potentially major issues with the property come up, leading to major repairs down the road. (Conversely, some complain constantly about minor things.) Many cause significant damage to the rental property.
Many homeless people have other problems other than just homelessness. They have major financial issues that would preclude them from even paying a minimal rent. They may have personal or mental problems that would raise the chances of problems for a property owner (increased risk of damage, etc.). A simple cost-benefit analysis for most banks would probably indicate that they're better off financially by having the home vacant for a little while until they can auction, rather than take a chance with a tenant who could make the property worth significantly less.
And, banks generally don't want to be in the property ownership business -- they ultimately want to sell the property and get rid of it. Selling a rental property with a tenant is often much more complicated. And if these are houses, many potential buyers may actually want to live there, so the only time a sale can happen is if the tenant is moving out. And many bad tenants refuse to leave, so you need to deal with evictions (and those who are evicted are even more likely to trash a place before they leave).
Being a landlord is a massive headache if you roll the dice and get bad tenants, which is why many folks who own only a few properties tend to let a larger property management company deal with it for them (even if they take a large cut).
I doubt your linked statistic is correct for today, since vacancy rates have gone down significantly in the past decade. But I also don't doubt there at least enough vacant home to house all homeless people, if it were possible to divert resources in that way. Unfortunately, logistically, it often isn't feasible.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 16 2018, @02:22AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by schad on Wednesday August 15 2018, @04:00PM
Banks don't want to be landlords. Any house that has sat empty for a year will need repairs, regardless of the state it was in originally. Banks don't want to have to deal with that. They don't want to have to deal with renters, and rental agreements, and inspections. To them, it's a business they just don't want to be in.
Of course, banks would happily sell to someone who does want to be a landlord. But landlords want to be as close to 100% capacity as possible, all the time. That way, they don't have to pay to maintain a vacant property, which of course generates zero revenue for them. It also lets them increase rents, making them more money.
They can get away with this because a large chunk of the rental market is... non-free, in one way or another. A lot of units are rented by giant companies with resources that a small landlord couldn't hope to match. Sure, right now they are just sitting on their piles of cash, but they can and will spend it to bankrupt anyone who tries to compete with them. Another problem is HOAs. Where I live, it's almost impossible to find a house that's not in an HOA, and HOAs hate renters. Third, city governments can actually get involved, for basically the same reasons that HOAs do.
These all make it very costly and high-risk to buy up vacant properties and then rent them, especially if you're not a huge company with massive resources. People still do it, but I agree, it doesn't happen at nearly the rate it ought to. The main question is what to do about it. If you try to force the bank to do something, you're likely to make banks less willing to offer mortgages, especially to more-risky borrowers. If you try to force HOAs and cities not to get in the way, you'll face a popular revolt; these stupid restrictions exist because people want them to exist. I don't really know the answer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Wednesday August 15 2018, @05:30PM (2 children)
Define "empty".
There are millions of homes used less than a month per year. Some of them are really big and expensive, too.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @09:06PM (1 child)
Following this line of reasoning, there is near "infinite" space available at night in all those big office buildings--they just sit empty until 8am the next morning. Why don't people live there (when they aren't working)?
(I first saw this in Bucky Fuller's writing)
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday August 15 2018, @09:37PM
I'm all for it. It would only affect us if you found a homeless guy willing to move in between 1AM, when the last two guys left last night and 6:30AM, when one came back this morning.
I need a new job.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Wednesday August 15 2018, @07:38PM (1 child)
A friend of the family's adopted kid has fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). The majority of homeless people have FAS (https://www.fasworld.com/fasd-facts/). This family has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on them. Various government programs have spent at least half a million dollars. Nothing is going to work. They utterly trashed a house, a nice house in a nice area.
I bought a house that was trashed by renters and paid 1/3rd of what it would otherwise have been worth.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 15 2018, @07:41PM
How much did you pay at The Home Depot to help you fix up the damage?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 15 2018, @07:40PM (1 child)
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bnjb78/how-to-claim-squatters-rights-to-stop-paying-your-rent [vice.com]
http://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=8737 [independent.org]
Being a landlord is a huge pain in the ass in many U.S. states, but at least a landlord might have the option to physically live in the property they own and prevent squatters from coming in and taking over the place. Bank-owned empty properties are practically begging for the homeless to get in and trash the place. Presumably, preventing them from ever getting in (by locking it up nice and tight and not leaving keys around for them to make copies of) is the correct solution for banks. Then they can use realtors to sell the property safely while screening out potential squatters.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 15 2018, @09:02PM
At least there were at the time I read about it.
_Some_ of those squatters could have been responsible tenants.
I've done a good job of taking care of my taxpayer-subsidized apartment, as well as paying my portion of its rent. I expect that the next time my rent is recalculated I'll start paying all of the rent myself.
It's not true that the homeless are too lazy to work, or that they lack the job skills. I founded the consultancy I own now while I was still homeless and was making bids in response to inquiries from potential client. My plan for when I actually closed a contract was to do all their work at Starbucks and Peets.
Quite a common reason for homeless is that a couple splits up with neither of the two earning enough money to rent a place on their own - but while they _were_ together they were paying the rent with money they earned at both their jobs.
A disabled welder I met at breakfast at Portland's Blanchet House Of Hospitality said to me "You talk to some guys on the street, they'll tell you that they used to make six figures."
I didn't tell him that _I_ used to make six figures.
Before he became disabled, that welder helped to build the world's largest steerable dish radio telescope, in Green Bank West Virginia.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday August 16 2018, @02:26AM
Well, there's always Detroit...plenty of vacancies!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.