Housing bubble crack affecting home improvement and construction By Sarah Miller
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From Newsday New York:
"As housing boomed, homeowners benefited - but they weren't alone. Real estate agents, furniture sellers, mortgage bankers, construction workers and a host of others reaped the rewards, too, as jobs were plentiful, wages rose and business grew.
"Now, as the housing market slows, cracks are emerging in those key sectors of the region's economy. Data and anecdotes alike are signaling the potential for job losses, closed offices and fewer new real estate licenses.
"Real estate is about a third of the economy," when accounting for related industries, said Martin Cantor, chief economist for Sustainable Long Island, an advocacy group. "It's going to ripple all the way through."
It's not just real estate companies that are impacted. Construction and mortgage companies are already making job cuts, too, experts said. And retailers may not be far behind.
"There's been a lot of contraction and a lot of layoffs," said Hauppauge mortgage banker Jonathan Pinard, who heads the Empire State Mortgage Bankers Association. "Most people are finding it very difficult."
To protect himself, Pinard recently joined Ocean First Bank in New Jersey, to oversee reverse mortgages there - the one area still growing, he said.
Meanwhile, Garden City home builder Alec Ornstein, president of the Long Island Builders Institute, is trying to ride out the slowdown with his current staff, in part by offering incentives to lure buyers. His subcontractors, however, are already making cuts.
"The effects of the softening of the market are going to be tremendous, and potentially recessionary in that field," Ornstein said.
There's a flip side to the slowing market's impact on employment. Ed Gitlin, the broker of Century 21 Benjamin, which has offices throughout the region, said he's hiring, to accommodate the need to show so many more houses.
Said Marilyn Urso, the co-broker-owner of Long Island Village Realty in Syosset: "Now's not a time to cut back on anything. Now's a time to continue doing what you are doing and doing it even better."
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