Archive for June, 2008
June 27th, 2008
I may be way off on this but I can’t remember seeing or hearing prominent Three Hammer Construction advertisements in the past few years.
The company, which has long been the most active home local home builder, didn’t need to. It was building subdivisions all over a five county area.
But I heard a Three Hammer ad on the radio the other day and spotted a billboard ad as well.
To me that’s just another indication of how slow things have gotten in the residential construction industry. For the past several years, Three Hammer wouldn’t have had to advertise. We have maintained a real estate database at the Register Star with every land transaction in Boone, Ogle and Winnebago counties since the beginning of 2003.
I went through it and found all of the Three Hammer Construction sales I was sure were homes built and sold and not vacant lots. Here is what I found:
2003 — 376
2004 — 387
2005 — 345
2006 — 404
2007 — 296
2008 — 64 through June 16.
These totals don’t include Three Hammer’s Stephenson County or Rock County, Wis., subdivisions. Still, as you can see it’s a long fall from 2006.
Still, if you add up the sales, the company has built and sold at least 1,872 houses in Boone, Ogle and Winnebago counties since the start of 2003. If you conservatively average out the house size to be three people, that’s 5,616 people living in Three Hammer houses built in just the last five years.
If Three Hammer were a village, it’d be the ninth largest in the Rock River Valley. There are more people living in those houses than in all of Oregon, Winnebago, Poplar Grove, Byron and Cherry Valley, to name a few.
Another thing about the company, they never talk to the media. I even grew up with one of the heirs to the Three Hammer kingdom and they don’t talk to me. I don’t take it personally. That’s just their policy. But maybe that will change as well.
June 17th, 2008
If you drive along North Second Street in Loves Park you’ll notice a large Ringland-Johnson Construction Co. trailer on the grounds of Woodward Governor and some digging going on.
Woodward is planning a news release next week announcing what will be going up on the landmark building that was built before Loves Park incorporated in 1947. Woodward has long been Loves Park’s largest employer.
Wisconsin-based Blackhawk Bank pulled a building permit June 5 for a new bank branch at 3101 11th St. Blackhawk bought the property from the city of Rockford at the end of January for $328,000. It was once the American Transmission Center, but has been vacant for years and was the site of a fire in 1999 where a Rockford firefighter was injured.
Blackhawk plans to talk more about the new branch next week as well. But back in March Blackhawk said it will feature drive-up banking, a 24-hour ATM, a full-service lobby, and a mortgage and business banking center.
Blackhawk Bank operates seven offices in Beloit, Wis., Rockford, Belvidere, Capron, Machesney Park and Roscoe.
June 6th, 2008
I’m always looking for more numbers to see if I can spot trends. Here’s a couple.
Between April 17 and May 29, 39 of the 60 companies on Star 60 stock index released quarterly earnings. I may have missed a few — there were days five and six were being released at a time. Of those, 21 reported year-over-year earnings increases, which overall is a good sign.
Among the gainers were some of the area’s largest employers, United Technologies, which owns Hamilton Sundstrand in Rockford and Taylor Co. in Rockton, Woodward Governor and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Of the ones that reported decreased earnings, some were directly tied to the nation’s struggling real estate and construction industry, including Lowe’s Companies Inc., The Home Depot and The Valspar Corp.
Of course, just looking at whether net income went up or down compared to the year before is not a perfect indicator. For example, Reliance Steel & Aluminum, parent company of Liebovich Brothers Inc., made $107.4 million in its first quarter. That’s good money but down 4 percent from 2007.
Of the 39 companies that I kept track of this earnings cycle, there were five that outright lost money — Sears Holdings Corp., General Motors Corp., UAL Corp., our own AMCORE Financial and GateHouse Media Inc., which owns the Rockford Register Star.
So I’m definately on the wrong side of this economic trend.
Another thing I looked at this week is business bankruptcies. Through May, 13 companies in Boone, Ogle and Winnebago counties have filed for bankruptcy protection compared to just five in the first five months of 2007.
At least six of the bankuptcies this year have ties to the struggling real estate and construction market, including two of the three bankruptcies in May — Arco Pool & Spa Inc. of Rockford and W. Molitor Construction Inc. of South Beloit.
Glen Turpoff, executive director of the Northern Illinois Building Contractors Association, said that wasn’t a surprise.
“There isn’t a business in any industry that isn’t closely examining how it’s going to get through this economic cycle,” Turpoff said. “It may have started in real estate and construction, but it’s spread to every industry.”
June 3rd, 2008
Realtors sold 455 houses in May, that was a more than 30 percent increase from April, but still lagged May 2007’s total by 27 percent.
The month-to-month increase was the largest percentage jump since May of 2007.
The average sale price through May was $138,193, also down more than 3 percent from May 2007’s average of $142,778.
