Slowed Sales Related to Housing
Thursday, October 30th, 2008In a recent recent blog post titled, “I Repeat: It’s Not Just A “Wall Street Bailout”
Brian Sullivan of Fox Business reminded readers that the housing crisis is not an island to itself, and explained that there are a number of industries that all benefit from home transactions. Sageworks data agrees, and shows that industries related to home building and housing have all been adversely affected by the crisis.
When Sageworks, Inc.’s data was mined for those privately held industries with the slowest sales growth over the last 12 months, it confirmed that a number of housing related industries such as furniture stores, lumber wholesalers, and building materials companies now rank among industries reporting the slowest sales growth in the US over the last 12 months.
Those Industries listed in the top 10th percentile for the slowest sales growth over the last 12 months includes the following:
|
-8.01% |
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|
Lumber and Other Construction Materials Wholesalers |
-7.05% |
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|
Sawmills and Wood Preservation |
-6.84% |
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|
Activities Related to Credit Intermediation |
-5.58% |
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|
Cement and Concrete Product Manufacturing |
-5.05% |
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|
Radio and Television Broadcasting |
-2.26% |
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|
Building Material and Supplies Dealers |
-1.84% |
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|
-1.48% |
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|
Insurance Carriers |
-1.32% |
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|
Veneer, Plywood, and Wood Product Manufacturing |
-1.04% |
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|
Furniture and Home Furnishings Merchant Wholesalers |
-0.97% |
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|
Drycleaning and Laundry Services |
-0.91% |
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|
Furniture Stores |
-0.71% |
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|
Ship and Boat Building |
-0.32% |
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Brian Sullivan also explained that consumer spending was 70% of the economy, and much of that was related to housing. Historically, the ability to borrow and spend has tracked closely with real estate prices. With that in mind, watch retail spending and especially the auto industry (see previous post), where the consumers ability to borrow is directly related to auto sales.