Start-Ups, Cheap Prices, Recession Still Hurting Landscape Business Owners

Leave a comment

Marion County unemployment is easing and home sales are up, but the atmosphere is less than rosy in the local landscaping trade. Lawn service companies and nurseries are still struggling to regain their financial footing following the recession.

Lawn care-related businesses say they face tough competition and a reluctance of consumers to spend at pre-recession levels.

David Frederick of B&B Nursery and Garden Shop said that before the recession business was much better. And despite economic improvement during the past few years, he hasn’t witnessed any trickle-down effect.

“It’s way off,” he said of revenues.

In the past, the parking lot was full from morning to closing. During a Monday afternoon telephone interview, a Star-Banner reporter asked how many cars were in his parking lot.

“None,” Frederick replied.

For the past few years, Frederick said, sales have fallen about one-third. As for customer habits, Frederick said he’s seen an across-the-board decline in what people are buying.

“I don’t know how I can go through another four years of this,” he said.

Alex Arsneault, owner of Showcase Lawn Care in Ocala, said the lawn care business remains competitive. The trade swelled a few years ago, with former construction workers offering to maintain lawns at cut-rate prices.

“There’s always someone who will do it cheaper,” Arsneault said.

Arsneault mows both residential and commercial lawns with his son. Although local unemployment levels have improved, fuel prices have stabilized for now and home sales are up, Arsneault said the small lawn care companies that got into the business during the recession remain his biggest competition.

And those upstarts don’t look to be getting out anytime soon.

Read the entire article here - http://www.ocala.com/article/20130430/ARTICLES/130429641/-1/entertainment02?Title=Area-lawn-care-companies-waiting-for-customers-to-spring-back

Landscapers Filling Gas Cans Assumed to Be Terrorists

Leave a comment

lawnmower

HUBER HEIGHTS – A citizen who thought he was confronting two males with homemade bombs was incarcerated after finding out they were filling gas cans for their landscaping business, threats only to long grass and weeds.

The citizen pulled his vehicle in front of theirs, causing a collision, at a gas station in the 7800 block of Old Troy Pike, then aimed an empty cross bow at them while proclaiming he was a federal agent.

When it was all sorted out, the two landscapers were angry and the citizen, on the way to the Montgomery County Jail, said, “I might be wrong this time, but what if I was right? Yeah, I was wrong. I guess I will apologize to them in the courtroom.”

The landscapers, from India, said they had owned the business for years and had no previous problems.

Rain is Good Thing for Lawn Care Companies

Leave a comment

bbb-top-10-art-g0ifsr7k-1rain-eric-1

WSIL — Tuesday’s sunshine is good news for local lawn care companies. They’re able to get out for mowing and landscaping, which has been hampered by the wet spring.

Whether it’s mowing, or spraying, a break in the rain means lawn care services are out in full force. “Very busy today. A little bit backed up,” said Joe Martin with Moon’s Lawns in Carbondale.

He’s on his 9th lawn of the day after the recent rains force him to play catch up. “We didn’t mow at all yesterday,” he said. “It was kind of iffy today whether we would be able to get on them but as you can see, we’re doing alright.”

Martin describes rain as “feast or famine” for mowing companies. “For me, it means a job. Without it, we don’t have work,” he said.

Last year’s drought caused people like Martin to lose work. “We started off pretty good and then went to where we had nothing,” Martin said.

But just enough rain can mean greener grass and a little extra work. “Sometimes you’re mowing stuff more than once. You’re mowing it twice in one visit,” explained Martin.

And in southern Illinois, you just never know what’s next. “You don’t like the weather around here, wait a minute!” laughed Al Lenz.

Lenz manages Accu-Grow in Marion and explains how the dandelions you see popping up everywhere are the aftermath of last year’s extreme drought and heat.

“It’s left holes in the cool season grasses which has allowed for the weeds to come in,” he explained. “Which is where we come in,” Lenz added.

But Lenz says this year’s late spring has been very beneficial for spraying weeds. “It’s been slow warming up which has given us plenty of time to get the grab grass preventor down before the crab grass germinated. Matter of fact I haven’t even seen any crab grass yet,” said Lenz.

The rain may put a damper on mowing today, but Martin and Lenz agree it’s better than waiting on the rain tomorrow. “It’s welcome, because, you know, this is southern Illinois. You never know when you’re gonna hit a dry spot,” added Martin.

Landscapers Among Winners of Housing Recovery

Leave a comment

<> on March 19, 2013 in Petaluma, California.

The housing market recovery is gaining momentum, but it’s not your average homebuyer behind the push, it’s investors.

Low interest rates and recuperating home prices have investors flocking to the market to find bargains and they’re pricing out traditional buyers.

But just like any competition, there are winners and losers in the recent shift and surge in the real estate market.

“Investors are increasingly putting money into residential properties because they see it as a lucrative investment,” says Deonta Smith, an analyst at market research firm IBISWorld. “Investors are purchasing foreclosed and existing homes that need a lot of work, fixing them up and renting them until prices increase.”

According to the National Association of Realtors, all-cash home purchases, typically the domain of investors, made up roughly 32% of sales nationally in March 2013 compared to around 20% in 2009.

Because investors are flooding the existing home market, it’s driving up prices, sparking bidding wars in some areas and freezing out home buyers that can get a mortgage, but can’t compete with an all-cash offer. As a result, buyers are turning to newly-constructed home, giving home builders a boost.

“They inflated the homebuilder market for new construction because they can’t get old ones,” says Smith, who cited Pulte Homes, Lennar Group and KB Homes as beneficiaries of the market shift.

Since many investors buy homes to renovate and then rent out, ancillary industries are seeing a surge. “While some industries, such as the specialty contractors, would benefit from a traditional homebuyer-led recovery as well, others in the service and retail sectors benefit specifically because the market is shifting toward single-family home rental,” says Smith in her research report (http://www.ibisworld.com/media/2013/04/24/investors-and-the-home-rental-market/)

“Several industries across different sectors benefit from a rentals-driven housing market recovery.”

According to IBISWorld, the remodeling industry has been one of the early beneficiaries of this investor-led real estate surge as they find more opportunities for small projects including the installation of appliances, kitchen remodels and bathroom improvements. Landscaping companies are also benefiting from the need for curb appeal to attract renters. Painters and plumbers are also seeing increased demand and home improvement stores whether it’s a mom and pop or a national chain are seeing more customer traffic.

Property management companies are getting a boost since the investors topically don’t directly manage the day-to-day operations of the homes they buy and rent out. These companies deal directly with the tenants and any maintenance and upkeep of the building.

Times may be good for real estate investors and the service providers now, but IBISWorld is cautioning that the good times won’t last forever, given investors have little appetite to rent out properties forever.

According to IBISWorld, many investors won’t stay in the market for long as more consumers pay down debt and begin the process of purchasing a home. The more people in the market will put more upward pricing pressure on homes, prompting investors to sell. “A widespread selloff of these assets could have wider implications for the overall housing market. If too many of the institutional investors who bought thousands of homes decide to cash in on their housing assets at once, they could flood the market with new inventory, dramatically increasing the supply of homes and risking another collapse in prices,” says Smith.

Still, the firm doesn’t think the recovery will fall apart if investors start to sell off since consumer buying power is expected to regain enough strength. “With unemployment steadily falling, disposable income growing moderately for the next five years and rising pentup demand for homeownership among consumers currently forced to rent, a second wave of homes on the market could receive a warm welcome,” says Smith .

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/05/08/winners-investor-led-housing-recovery/#ixzz2SiRAEPd1

Minority Owned Landscape Business Aided by Mentor

Leave a comment

628x471

Susanna Guzman has won some significant contracts in the past year for her irrigation and landscaping business, Mundo Verde.

Last year, the company landed work with two oil field services companies that have built offices on the South Side. Net income is up in 2012, compared with the year before.

But Guzman said she knows she could make changes to beef up her company’s bottom line. That led her to enroll in programs offered by Bexar County and the San Antonio Chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America on business basics and bonding.

Finishing the basics program allowed Guzman to make a pitch to be a protégé of two well-established mentor companies as part of Bexar and AGC’s mentor-protégé program to help small, minority-owned and women-owned businesses grow.

On Friday, Guzman and the heads of six other companies spoke to an assembled group of potential mentors.

Guzman said she’s aware that she has inefficiencies in administration and estimating.

“I need better control of monitoring a project as we move along — knowing at any point where we stand in profit-and-loss and time to complete the job.”

Prospective protégés had to submit a range of information, including balance sheets, to be eligible to be paired with mentors. They also had to make a written case for why they believe they need a mentor.

Although profit has grown at Guzman’s company, she said she realized that she’d “run the business in a reactive and survival mode.”

It didn’t help when Mundo Verde was dinged when Ballenger Construction Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy late last year.

Guzman said Ballenger owns her company $140,000. “I’m past the shock,” she said. “I’m at a point where I need to decide whether I’m going to file a lawsuit is something I want to do or not.”

As Guzman made her pitch, Doug Nunnelly of F.A. Nunnelly Co. asked her: “Are you prepared to open up your company (to a mentor)?”

Guzman said she’s ready and will make the time.

She learned she’ll be mentored by Clark Construction Group and Alterman Inc. as part of the two-year program.

The program calls for the protégé and mentor to meet two hours a month and have a formal agenda, said Renée Watson, who heads Bexar County’s program and runs the meetings of protégés and mentors.

At every meeting, the protégé must send Watson current financial statements, marketing plans, current work lists and construction schedules.

“We also need to know what’s happening with cash flow,” Watson said.

The program extends beyond the monthly meetings.

“When they’re not in a meeting, they can call mentors,” Watson said. “They still have access.”

Other companies that were paired with mentors Friday were MGS Construction, Azteca Designs Inc., FJ Enterprises, JAS Development and Z&L Contractors.

“This is one of our best groups,” said Doug McMurry, executive vice president of AGC’s local chapter. “I think they’re more attentive and committed to the success of their business.”

The goal of the mentor-protégé program is to grow small, minority-owned and women-owned business, Watson said, “to be top contractors and bid directly with governmental entities.”

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/article/Small-companies-aided-by-mentors-4457512.php#ixzz2Rc9Egq2p

Earth Week and Propane Mowers

Leave a comment

Revere-Gas_Wright-Stander_P

Earth Week is the perfect time to promote the clean air benefits of propane-powered lawn mowers. On Tuesday, representatives of MO-PERC, the Missouri Propane Education and Research Council, were in Sedalia to talk up the benefits of propane with area landscape contractors.

Ottens Small Engine hosted the event at their facility on east Broadway. Over the past couple of months, Ottens has started to build its business in propane-powered commercial lawn mowers. Local landscape and mowing companies are catching on and enjoying the benefits.

Lower greenhouse gases, lower operating costs, less maintenance and less wear and tear on engines are the primary benefits of propane power for equipment. In spite of the cool and rainy weather, contractors had the opportunity to look over a variety of mowers, talk with propane and equipment experts, learn about MO-PERC’s LEAF incentive program and pick up educational literature. More Demo Days are being planned in other parts of the state later in the spring.

The Missouri Propane Education and Research Council (MO-PERC) is a not-for-profit organization authorized by the Missouri legislature to promote industry education, public safety and consumer awareness of propane. More information can be found at www.moperc.org.

Police Investigate Landscaping Business Scam

Leave a comment

Scam

NEW PROVIDENCE, Pa. (WHTM) -

State police are investigating a theft by deception involving an offer for lawn care by a nonexistent landscaping business.

Officials say that on the morning of March 18 the victim responded to an online sales listing for lawn care.

The victim met with an unknown man and gave him $6486 in cash in exchange for contact information for the landscaping business.

Police determined that the posted landscaping business never existed.

Anyone with information pertaining to this case may contact police at 717-299-7650.

Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 2,630 other followers

%d bloggers like this: