Just my observations. Not trying to be optimistic or pessimistic but:

In New Braunfels Texas. Own a small glass business here.

Just had a competitor close and lay of 150 people through an asset sale. Four other small shops already failed. Also taking calls from guys with 10-20 years experience (management) ready to take a spot on a truck.

We will be OK for the summer but after that who knows?


Question: Is the media telling us the real story on the economy? I am seeing businesses close regularly in "one of the highest growth area's" in the state/country.

commercial roofing & help our friends with their homes

there are no medium jobs
we either have repairs we run for a minimum
or
$250K & up jobs

the ITB's through Building Connect have basically stopped today

I drove to Ft worth the other day from Sanger , can't believe all the new houses on 35w . Where do they work to pay for them . Only Person making money is 407 BBQ out there .

do y'all install store fronts & the like?

We do along with residential glass. Backlog for now is fairly strong.

Construction around here is stalled. Lots of contractors are advertising for remodeling jobs even. Boom to bust kind of.

One upside for consumers, pricing went from price gouging to getting reasonable. Yeah, I know that sucks if your in that biz.

Fleet Parts, Hydraulics , and Supply here , holding our own but feels and smell like last 3 years of inflation and interest coming home to roost.


Considering looking for the off ramp.

gotta respect glaziers
i think y'all have a higher accident rate than roofing or cellular
good luck

The foundation of American capitalism has always been a replenish-able supply of cheap labor…..as long as that doesn’t get interrupted; things will be fine. I’ve seen things worse in my lifetime 1987, 2007, 2020.

Things are booming around here at least as far as housing and retail construction. I have noticed new houses are taking a few weeks to sell, vs being sold before being completed. The boom might be getting a little long in the tooth at this point, hard to tell. Being retired I pay little attention to the local job market.

Apparently, the apartment building business here in DFW has seen the biggest business boom the apartment building business has ever seen in the history of history. If there are 2 blades of grass growing together here in DFW, rest assured that there's going to be a multi-family dwelling built on it.

Interest rates have new residential construction very slow.

My parking lot at lunch today.

Drive through Arlington on I-20 any day/ evening and all the restaurants are jamb packed. Walmart is always full of folks as are HD and Lowes. Lots of $ being spent so the real economy must be doing ok.

Pawnshop threw out a few bars of silver. A few American Eagles.

The tools is where you see when people got hurt. Specialty mechanics tools up for sale. The $1000 set of Snap-On pliers have a story to tell.

Other then that, it's hard to tell in Killeen. The military being the biggest employer. It's always fairly busy in town. Haven't noticed anything of significance having to close down.