Construction is booming all around the greater Charlotte area. We, at EFC Builders, are working in three counties on projects right now: Iredell for a new waterfront home build in Mooresville, Mecklenburg on a waterfront home in Cornelius for both interior and exterior renovations, and we are building an addition in Catawba county in Northview Harbor community. Summer is a great time for getting houses started and under roof as well as additions—great weather is not only beneficial, but workers are willing to work longer hours in the Summer. The critical part of new construction is getting the home from ground to dried in and weather is not so builder-friendly once we get into mid-Fall and Winter.
Mortgage bankers tell us that the low interest rates, around 4%, are keeping them busy. But it’s construction labor that is the primary challenge across the board for contractors like us. With unemployment close to a 50-year low, we have to compete for labor of all types because the continued high level of construction work is keeping all the subcontractors booked up.
A few of our primary trade subcontractors have been working on EFC Builders’ projects for over twenty years, and we can count on them to respond to quotes, work orders and scheduling pretty well. There are, however, other aspects of construction that require new or additional contracted labor. For example, we don’t put in a metal, spiral staircase on many projects so our leverage with those providers is not significant enough to bring us to the front of their queue. The difficulty for us translates into scheduling and time of completion for our clients as we must jockey for our place in their schedule. Our forward planning and constant communication with our material suppliers and subcontractors is paramount in our ability to successfully complete projects in a reasonable amount of time.
A casual metric we use that demonstrates the pace of local construction activity is seeing concrete trucks on the road in our everyday travels – In 2008-9 those concrete trucks were parked in the yard for the most part.
If you are inclined to notice concrete trucks in your routine travels around our area, it is hard not to see one every day………or big logging trucks or drywall carriers. There is evidence all around us that construction is booming.