If I need a Home Depot I have to go either 4, 6, 13, or 15 miles. Yep 4 of them. Target? 4, 6, 9, 11, 16 miles. I have my choice of Costcos and nearly every other "big box" or major reatailer within that same 15 mile radius. Anyone willing to suggest that with consumer exaustion setting in and the housing ATM malfunctioning we can support the commercial RE we already have?
37 comments:
First and murst!
The first Bomb Depot I see from here is 5 miles away.
What's really pissing me off is that HDs are lousy and expensive hardware stores. They have 7 diferent latex base tint gallon choices but a flanged grade 8 bolt? And their lumber is getting really crappy. You have to rummage through pallets just to get a few good furring strips and then you pay through the nose.
I noticed the drop in quality of the lumber. I suspect they had to do something to offset the cost of the CEO's compensation package.
I wouldn't expect Home Depot to have grade 8 bolts. Bringing one of those puppies up to rated torque would split a 4x4 post, even a 6x8 header. Even most auto supply stores don't have those. Look for fastener stores that specialize in steel work. San Diego has one that does carry Grade 8s (ABABA QA) While they do mostly wholesale, I have been able to pick up items as retail on a walk-in basis. Another one in San Diego is a place I remember as Franks Truck supply. Unusual place. I was able to get allen head grade bolts for a Toyota 20R engine that the dealer didn't even have. Place had all sorts of interesting parts, including GMC 6-71 blowers.
I once met someone who actually found a piece of straight lumber in HD.
No lie.
Lowe's and Home Depot within 5 miles. Lowe's is better, but it still sux. Try to find a hose washer or a bolt. It will be in a package with ten other things you don't need for $9.95. If you can find it. The last lumber I looked at had holes eaten in it, not just a few either, we're talking swiss cheese. Thank goodness for Ace, I got 11 heat resistant washers for nine cents each and walking out whistling a happy tune.
more ice to add. new home sales were down triple the expected.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070726/economy.html?.v=19
I once met someone who actually found a piece of straight lumber in HD.
I bet it was the test piece on the planer/thicknesser machine though. :)
rob dawg:
"They have 7 diferent latex base tint gallon choices but a flanged grade 8 bolt?"
What? How many Happy Homeownerz build gas turbine engines in their backyards?
Lumber is, and has been, going to shit for the last two decades.
Anyway, if you want the esoteric stuff,(at esoteric prices), go with Grainger's, McMaster-Carr, or Mariner's Annual.
I've always had good luck calling or e-mailing the manufacturer direct, and letting them "bird-dog" me to their locall retailers.
The "corporate store front" is going to be interesting in the near future.
Remember back in the 80s when Sears and JC Penny almost bought the farm and had to reinvent themselves?
K-Mart never came back to full glory.
As the resession hits these and all the others are going to go through it again be it HD/Lowes or Target/Kohls Sears/Pennys
Chillis/Applebees outback/bugaboo creek etc.
We over capitalize these iedas, retrench and then see who is going to cut it. It is the American way, at least for the past 20 years.
As for HD, I used to love the place, but the past 2 times I have gone in for parts to build a door for my deck they were out of the hardware. How the devil can they be out of 4" L brackets? or 2.5", or 2" brackets?
Screw the am/fm radios, curtains, air conditioners, 7 varieties of low end crappers etc.
Ah, a breath of fresh air! It sure has calmed down over here @ EN and I for one am glad to be back now that it is a bit more sane.
I prefer going to the neighborhood Ace Hardward and paying a bit more. The food is quality at the local mom & pop shops even if it is a few bucks more. Great Thai/Malay/Singapore place about 2 miles from my place that I like goign to because I enjoy THE PEOPLE and the food. They know me every time I come in an I know them.
DEATH TO THE BIG BOX. Walmart has actually done more to harm the US econmony then help it if you look at the big picture...
Nice to be back Dawg
H. Simpson:
"How the devil can they be out of 4" L brackets? or 2.5", or 2" brackets?
Screw the am/fm radios, curtains, air conditioners, 7 varieties of low end crappers etc,"
Ahhh, but HD started getting burned by Lowe's, whose business model was to appeal to Missus Happy Homeowner...broader aisles, better lighting, brighter paint scheme, and (as with any store that caters to women...stupefying selection).
HD, displaying all the original thinking of any corporate entity, decided to go "us too!".
And now you can buy 18 different colors of toilet tank covers in 5 different fabric choices, but Rob Dawg wanders aimlessly up and down the aisles, muttering to himself about "Grade 8 bolts",(wave hello if you see him).
BJ (and Sharky too),
Thanks for the info. I was exagerating about the grade 8s. I have the last surviving American SST Wing Pivot Bolt on my desk as a paperweight. Oh, and I designed the GE inspection bolt that goes in every one of their jet engines. It's actually a borescope plug and it is used to optically check the high pressure turbine blades. Yeah, I know where to get the good stuff but didn't know about Franks Truck Supply. Our local ACE actually has a polished bolt section to appeal to Harley owners but they also work for my Suzuki GS1100ES.
Game Over,
Glad to be back. There was no way I was gonna let the quality suffer to appeal to the clamoring hordes. Kind of like the big box/retail issues of this thread eh? The Commercial RE fallout will be much faster and far more visible. A shuttered big box like is already happening in Oxnard, CA is more obvious than a brown lawn and green pool. California is triply screwed in this aspect. Since Prop 13 cities have been doing what is called "zoning for dollars." Huge swaths of what should have been light industrial have been converted to neotrad housing and retail. Cities are unduly dependent upon sales tax revenues first and give back sharing agreements with the State. Some very ugly choices face those cities stupid enough to have participated.
I confess to vehmently hating Wal-Mart. I know it isn't right to hate and it clouds judgement but I cannot help myself. Anyone interested in a discussion as to why Wal-Mart is at the very least a traitorous entity and probably far worse? Rather than tease; theft and transfer of intellectual property.
Dawg:
"Oh, and I designed the GE inspection bolt that goes in every one of their jet engines."
See? No-one appreciates steam anymore.
A borescope bolt to examine turbine blades?
Where's the fun in that?
If you're not burtoning 3 20-ton chain falls to lift the LP turbine casing, why would you bother?
BTW, GE's aeroderivatives are going into cargo ships...LMSR's, and have been getting good feedback.
The one moving part of a turbine simplicity without the royal pain in the ass of boilers.
Move to rural America, and you'll quickly learn to love Wal-Mart.
Saves a lot on gasoline.
A borescope bolt to examine turbine blades?
Where's the fun in that?
No, the "fun" is when you don't inspect the blades for incipient stress fatigue. Actually had a buddy in an F-15B (flight instruction) lose a blade on takeoff. Rule of thumb: lose a blade -> lose the airplane, try to save the pilot(s).
So ... anybody want to talk about the bloodbath on Wall Street today?
D.R. Horton announced a loss of $828 million. Oil at $77 per barrel. DJIA down 300 points.
It's just the beginning.
Talking about the market is trying to catch a falling knife. Let's see the close and sort through the rubble.
Dawg RE: WMT
I simply refuse to shop there. Prices aside I'm not a big fan of the mullet'd clientele either...
Most interesting part today is the market/metals correlation breakdown...looks as though folks are selling everything and buying oil and treasuries (how bout them 10yrs! 5.20% to 4.80% in two weeks). This has hurt gold & should be a positive for the economy as lower rates help mitigate the punishment the housing market continues to take.
Selloff on bridge loan concerns is silly and this 100pts up today, 200pts down tomorrow type trading reminds me of every other equity market top I've seen. The market still has more liquidity than it knows what to do with (foreign currency reserves/petrodollars)and there will be a level where folks care. Instead of 7x levered the PE firms may have to settle for 4x or 5x. Not exactly Earth shattering. Is this the long awaited repricing of risk (and credit)? Too preliminary to tell.
I also love watching CNBC try to ascribe reasons for each day's gain and loss. Have been reading a great book lately, The Black Swan, which deals with "fat tail" events (the unknown "unknown") and points out humanity's need to tie a cause to every event instead of connecting the dots and looking at the larger picture.
Hmmm...with London gone for the day it looks like oil's now in the red as well.
On vacation from life in general, but couldn't resist posting on this topic.
Commercial real estate isn't big enough to save the bubble economy. In fact, nothing is big enough to save the bubble economy, because once the bubble migrated into housing, there simply wasn't any larger sector of the economy for it to migrate to. The problem is that the meltdown in sub-prime--and now alt-A--threw a wrench in the liquidity-creation machine that had allowed money to be recirculated at crazy rates.
The de-leveraging has yet to really kick in; it's only happening on a smaller scale in some troubled hedge funds, but it's already soaking up liquidity. Three billion USD (at least!) from Bear Stearns, *whoosh*, gone, and that won't be the last of it.
The untold story of the markets is that it's not just MBS; the demand for leveraged buyout bonds is starting to show serious signs of faltering as well. Several privte equity deals have had to be quietly scaled back, or even scrapped, due to under-subscribed bond issuances. Lenders are starting to demand real risk premiums--and cov-lite™ may be in trouble as well. Private equity had been one gigantic bid on the market that's been holding up prices, but now there are questions about how long that bid order will be in place.
Hmmm...with London gone for the day it looks like oil's now in the red as well.
*************************
What do you mean by this, PP?
One of my co workers had her retirement in the stock market, mostly in the Mortgage instruments that we have been blogging about for the better part of a year. She was un-award. I told her about two weeks ago that she needs see how much was invested in said 'trash' and that she needs to move out of these and into the energy sector, or commodities quickly, that the institutions were selling like mad and there will be a correction soon. I said that she may have till Christmas at the most.
I just spoke to her and she made the move yesterday at 3.30 PM!
She is very happy and I am gloating.
Nice to make good friends at work.
(-:
For my money, it was the tightening up of the Bankruptcy regulations that pricked the balloon.
Classic short-sighted business strategy...sure, they were making money hand-over-fist loaning money, but got the willies about the number of defaults.
Boo-hoo-hoo..."Congress....DO something!"
Congress did...and pop went the weasel.
The mortgage sector can still have a few more gasps of air if they begin marketing their HELOC's to defenestrate the credit card companies.
Lower interest rates, and tak deductible to boot.
And this would be, IMO, a good thing.
Everybody and their fuckin' brother is getting into the credit card biz...Hey, Ford! Hey, GM! Hey, big boxers!...stick to your core business and leave the financial schtick to the moneylenders, huh?
FMW:
One word:
COAL
(Liquefied Natural Gas ain't bad either)
Dow Crashes 400 points.
http://www.drudgereport.com/
@ Sharky,
Yep, coal methane is in our current Private Placement offering with the new coil drill technology. Gonna Fund really fast, imo.
Ya Hoooo
and WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Hey guyz,
We don't need to worry about oil any longer. Don't forget about the "cold-fusion type of battery-thingy that basically never runs out of energy."
Now, I ask you all. Isn't this better than slogging through 200+ posts of nailhiswife/dui/caseyisinnocent idiot posts?
Yes.
My one beef with tightening the bankruptcy laws was they didn't seem to tighten them for corporations. Or make those dumbass airlines pay back their bailout money.
Unrelatedly, I tend to find love/hate for wal-mart divides along rural/urban lines.
I buy t-shirts and such from there on the odd occasion I actually go to one. The nearest one is about 60-70 miles from me though - I think - so it only happens when I am traveling.
I lifted this comment from HP:
July 26, 2007 3:23 AM
D'oh! said...
Uh oh! Bush's lackey struck out in China. Must be time to lash out at someone with another war.
#################################
China Business
Jul 26, 2007
China shying from shaky US mortgage market
By Olivia Chung
HONG KONG - While China is eager to invest a portion of its US$1.33 trillion foreign-exchange reserve overseas, it is unlikely to take a chance on buying additional US mortgage-backed securities (MBS) as they are now considered too risky, Chinese economists said.
During a recent trip to Beijing, US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Alphonso Jackson tried to sell China on the idea of buying more MBS. Investing in MBS offers better returns for China than US Treasury bonds, and at the same level of risk, Jackson claimed.
He called it a "win-win" situation...
Did they send KC over to sell the Chinese some crap sandwiches, or what?
FMW...I meant that oil had gone from up about a buck this morning to down about a buck in the span of an hour and a half. I was also riffing on my prior comment of man's need to attribute cause to events by blaming it on the folks in London going home for the day ;)
Oh, got it. Thanks PP.
@ Agent #777
saw you at HP! (-:
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