The economy must be better than I thought

[Roland of Gilead]

For the past two days I have tried to find a roofing company to do a repair on our roof.  Nobody is interested.  I have tried to find a landscaping company to do some clearing and grading...nada.  I am not even talking price or trying to lowball them.   Now today I notice a real estate agent in our neighborhood at another house and I mention we might be interested in listing ours.  He said that's nice, I have to go, sorry and left.

These events just don't strike me as people hurting for cash or being hungry for work.  Could be a local thing though.

[CarDude]

Hah - come to Rockford! There was a hailstorm here a few weeks ago, and the town has been invaded by roofers. I expect it's also weather-related.

[dragoncar]

Not sure where you are, but where housing is booming yeah -- tradespeople are swamped with people doing remodels, landscaping, etc.

edit: as usual, the best time to do this stuff is during a big recession but before the people leave.  I know in the bay area there was a period where construction was really (relatively) cheap, but then a lot of laborers moves to cheaper locations since they couldn't get work.  Then, when things picked up again, there was nobody left to do all the construction.

[ChrisLansing]

No clue about the real estate agent.   

Are the roofing and landscaping jobs small?   That might be the reason.  Is there a handyman that you'd trust to do these jobs?     

[Workinghard]

We're having the same problem with trying to get a plumber or handyman. Sigh.

[TomTX]

Is this something you can learn to do online (TONS of YouTube videos on DIY) and... DIY?

It can be really intimidating at first (I learned NOTHING of being handy growing up) - but most of it isn't all that hard, once you work through it.

[BlueMR2]

I'm having that problem with almost everything it seems.  Hard to find people to do any work.  Shops are out of products and don't seem at all interested in returning calls.  That's fine, I'll save more money since I'm forced to do myself/without.  :-)

[soccerluvof4]

Where I live with the extended Winter and no spring yet Landscapers cant get started and Roofers are way behind. I have a friend that does roofing and he asked me if I new of anyone looking for a job as did a friend of mine that owns a painting biz. 

[Roland of Gilead]

Is this something you can learn to do online (TONS of YouTube videos on DIY) and... DIY?

It can be really intimidating at first (I learned NOTHING of being handy growing up) - but most of it isn't all that hard, once you work through it.

I had another thread about my roof issue.  I need to buy or rent some serious scaffolding or rent a bucket lift truck (expensive!).  I may end up DIY but I want to do it safely (40 feet in the air).

[Gerard]

wrt trades, a perfect storm of stuff: people moving to Alberta or North Dakota for shit-tons of money, older guys retiring and nobody replacing them, hard winter that left a lot of people needing work done... I had to teach myself plumbing this winter because I literally couldn't get a real plumber.
(Because of people leaving and resulting labour shortages, my hometown now has the highest per-square-foot construction cost in Canada!)

[Leisured]

The coast of Queensland, Australia, north east, suffers from occasional hurricanes, what we call cyclones. The story is that if business for builders is quiet, tradesmen say; 'it is time for another cyclone'.