Because of a few decisions I’ve made in my life, I can pretty much guarantee I won’t be retiring at age 65. (I’ll still be paying the college tab for my child as I hit my golden years.) But there are a great number of people on the cusp of 65—custom builders among them—who had hopes of settling into a slower life right about now. Then the recession came along and dashed those hard-earned hopes.
For custom builders especially the economic bust was a double whammy. It hit investments and livelihoods at the same time. As business dried up, many replaced the shortfall with money from savings to keep things going. They held onto valued employees for too long, carrying others’ salaries while not paying themselves. They’d repay their savings when the economy came back, they told themselves. But the economy didn’t come back. It still hasn’t, and no one knows when it will.
This perfect storm of market conditions and business decisions has pushed quite a few custom builders over the edge into forced “retirement.” In times like these, it really hurts to have your spouse or other family in the business, too. All hands go down with the ship. Many architects are in the same boat, tapped out on their 401(k)s and hoping they can pay their liability policies for as long as they’ll need them.
In our story “Working Overtime,” senior editor Bruce D. Snider interviewed a selection of custom builders who are living some of the scenarios I’ve outlined. They’re all still in business, if precariously so, and they’re making the best of it. They were the strong, resilient ones to begin with—the ones who thought they knew how to weather tough times. But even the long-timers have never seen anything like the Great Recession. Their stories of struggle are poignant.
As much as our hearts go out to these would-be retirees frozen at the brink, they also should extend to another cohort battered by this national nightmare: the fledgling builders just getting their businesses going. They were the most vulnerable of them all and they’ve been dropping like flies.
I can foresee, when times improve and pent-up demand lets loose, that we’ll be missing a whole generation of younger custom builders. And our battle-worn 60-something-year-olds will face more work than they can possibly handle—for as long as their spirits can endure.
S. Claire Conroy
cconroy@hanleywood.com
