Foreclosures Turn Builders Buildings Upside Down

November 5th, 2008 | Tags: Foreclosures

Foreclosures have turned the dream of builder Lou DeSangro upside down. Sitting on the covered patio of his house suntanned Lou looks like he is on a movie set. There is rocky fountain in front next to a sparkling pool and an outdoor swank kitchen. Like the movie set it is unreal because beyond this there is nothing but desert dirt. This is the nightmare of Lou’s dreams.

The promises of a bustling town have gone up in smoke. With it has vanished Lou’s source of livelihood. The culprit is the foreclosure crisis that has badly hit the construction industry. It has led to a credit crunch. Without money flowing in how can builders build buildings?

Initially Lou employed a staff of twelve. Today it has been trimmed down to two – his son and himself. The family savings are all they have to live on. There are no funds for landscaping bemoans his wife who is a schoolteacher.

Lou sits back and observes the dust blown up by the foreclosure crisis. There are hard options ahead for him. The first to go would be his beloved motorcycle. This would be followed by a coin collection he had carefully stored for his yet-to-come grandchildren. He thinks and thinks about how much more he would have to bend at the age of 54. Like many other in the same foreclosures soup the financial future is bleak for him. Reminiscing on his Boston roots he recalls that till now he had never been unemployed. He said, “It’s really scary. I’ve got the one job, I’m owed $2,500 bucks on it, and then I don’t know what I’m doing for money.”

Lou specializes in remodeling. He makes additions to rooms and suites and adds covers to pools and patios. Just a couple of years ago there was plenty of work in Las Vegas with the demand going up for newer, larger and more swank houses. Between 2000 and 2006 the average value of houses doubled. The owners of houses found themselves flushed with equity. They jumped from one project to another paying Lou’s bills without delay. At the peak of the housing boom Lou got a tip off about the south of Las Vegas suburbs being a great place to build new units. He jumped into the fray and constructed some town houses. Today he is watching with dismay foreclosures eating into the predictions and prophesies. The heyday did not last.