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From: Lance (Tour Survey of June 2003)
Date: 04 Jul 2003
Time: 21:17:13
Remote Name: 66.82.48.1
I would like to discuss the issues concerning Maine and it’s economy. For this most important discussion we are going to focus on jobs and money flow and talk about how that results to car washing? Yes, imagine that? Well first we should discuss tourism in the coastal areas. They are not breaking any speed records in Kennebunkport or Bar Harbor, but things are doing a lot better now that the late winter is over, that was a bad one, not the worst but relatively tough. If you check into the area around Cape Cod or Plymouth Rock, you will see a little better than last years numbers. But then again everyone in Boston wants to ditch that traffic as downtown area is worse than Denver’s Cluster Fustermuck. Also it is much closer to NYC or NJ for the weekend. In Bar Harbor things are okay, ferry has full loads to Nova Scotia as does Portland Maine’s ferry departure point. Portland has much foot traffic down town and around the port and board walk. Along the Hwy 1 and the offshoot 1As we see good weekend traffic, yet take your self off the main drag inland and within 5 miles you find all those towns a little deprived of cash flow. Along the 95 we are seeing slow return to economic viability for many small businesses and basic industry, which have made it through the rain. The late Strawberry Crop was pushed into summer harvest and causing increased water use, but they had a good snowmelt in the region. Maine business community is strong hearted and even though much of the major purchases cause exported cash flow to Mass, it comes back into the communities in tourism, seafood, farming and manufacturing. As well as drawing in money from Europe for seafood packaging due to the 30% undervalued dollar on the Euro. Kind of a good deal when all of a sudden you automatically have a 30% discounted product against the European Countries. This helps as people get to go back to work at a fair wage to process. Although there is another issue there due to the over fished ocean and the Boston globe and NY Times is making a bigger deal out of the issue than exists, although truly the issue is real. Real enough to discuss and a little more real than the Global Warming Issue. In the Georges Bank fishing area there are issues with Natural Gas and fishing, which are looking to be incompatible. Air guns for drilling are said in a study to hurt the hearing of mammals and types of sea life, this makes their auditory abilities week to find fish and communicate with one another. We are going to have a situation with natural gas coming soon, which will effect our economy. Looks like a repeat case of the Nixon era in Santa Barbara and the fight will end up in court, so looks like no one will win, fishing or natural gas. Only the whale watchers may win while the court battle continues until after the shortage predicted. The environmentalists say that the dead sea life spots in the Gulf will also end up off the coast of Maine. But for now Maine is happy to have the undervalued dollar to promote the jobs. In NH across the boarder however manufacturing shrank in June but new construction was doing incredibly well similar to many other markets in the country. Now the economic indicator was nearly 49.8 % but 50% is growth, so there was just the slightest economic deceleration. Now one might consider the harsh winter in the region and it’s problems on the out come of the previous quarter. We are looking a positive sign in the next quarter although this will upset the Richard Dean for President HQ in Manchester as they are wanting to use the “It’s the economy stupid” technique afraid not it is not going to work this go around because things are looking up, slowly but up never the less. We are seeing a stabilization in manufacturing in NH while in Maine with it’s many mills, the growth has been in only a few industries thanks to the better weather now. Those markets which involve larger consumer items are finding life a little tough, smaller manufacturers are waiting for orders and everyone is waiting on cash flow in the New England rural areas and cities under 150,000 which is nearly every city in NH, VT and ME. And 85% of the cities (calling a city that which is over 10K pop.) in CT, RI and MA. In some NH cities those involved in custom manufacturing are talking in terms of a “Train Wreck” when discussing the economic calamity. They are being kottled by the Democrats who want a good showing in the NH primaries. Why is politics so important to these issues? Well because the rhetoric and bullshit has a lot to do with consumer sentiment and spending behavior. Since Summer is here now the New Enland area is happy to have the big events such as Bike Week, which brings in 2 million dollars to local rural areas. The forth of July will also help out. The charge of customers came out of the wood work for Memorial Day with excellent cooperation on weather. One regional factory store group was very excited as were the regional malls and Lobster tail and hotdog carts on board walks and tourist areas. The restaurants have not seen a huge rebound and the hotel industry now that weather is better are feeling a little safer but they feel that the uncertainty is the worst. Also of note are the low interest rates for high priced and well established consumer items such as housing, second homes, motor homes SUVs and cars, no layoffs in that sector although some months have been slow and five star dealers are over stocked. The malls and big box stores are all doing well in New England from the Boston Subs and larger cities all the way into the redeveloped downtown areas for those small businesses not competing against the width and depth of Wal-Marts product line, which has made it America’s distribution system, by default and extremely good business savvy to the chagrin of those who developed film, sold cameras, shoes, general merchandise or garden goods. Office space occupancy in rural and smaller towns is not good at borders 20% unoccupied and down town regions which have not been redeveloped tends to have 1 in four businesses gone with out of business, for lease or for sale signs in the windows, some just storage. Not a good sign and makes anyone who has ever owned a business in this country want to cry. These are the things we look at when deciding to enter a market and we have to say that there were many markets we would simply pass on right now. In southern Maine they are discussing issues with Indian Casino efforts after studying the problems and successes of CT Indian Casinos. In Sanford Maine, the voters are looking into what they wish to do with a huge proposal there. The Sanford-Springvale area will draw people from Portland, Boston, Manchester, Concord and Rochester NH. While others in the areas of VT, NH, ME are saying that summer vacation rentals are not doing so hot as one property management consultant told us. Another income property owner confirmed this who owns properties along 95 all the way into FL. ME is not great, NH is not as good either and a few have given up this year. In NH a 3 bedroom, private dock and hot tub with two boats was going for only $2,000 per week on a lake that was last year and this year about $1800.00 some only $1200 per week. Such a deal for a vacation. On the commercial side we are seeing Grubb and Ellis, Prudential, CB Richard Commercial etc. are inundated with properties and eager investors are looking to buy anything producing 8-10% in returns, which a few years back would be poor value and they would be uninterested. In MA, BioTech is getting a little boost from VC but very little else is drawing in funds for expansion. Healthcare is good, but not great, complaining about all the ruthless and vindictive regulators who are storming them as they say. In Maine many have gone back to school and as a matter of fact when we visited we found that many of those unemployed people have gone back to school or decided to stop looking. Talked with a lady who ran a small business in one city whose husband had hurt his shoulder and was looking for something else but not all that hard. The idea of more people getting degrees in Maine was significant as it compares with Mass with only 1/3 the number of lettered degrees. In one Technical School-College in Maine it was found that 52.5% of all students were non-traditional, meaning online and night school which is a growing trend across America. Is this non-traditional type of learning as good? Some say it is better. http://www.carwashguys.com/0030203_1.shtml We have seen it and can tend to agree in many instances when we are discussing putting American’s back to work. Maine has been making approximately 344 million in sales tax revenues and about 53 million a year in gas taxes. Non-Maine residents contributed 9 Billion in revenue to Maine’s economy in 2001. In winter of 2002-03 there was actually a 4% increase in tourism, which is good and it appears to be beating out airline traffic to other places as people can drive from the megalopolis for the weekend, day or week. But we saw the same thing in Dolly Land in TN where people could drive for a min-vaca. Average Housing price is up to 148K now, which is 13.8% higher than previously. Hard work ethic is good in Maine and almost as good as the comments on the Western side of the country when discussing those in Iowa and places like Fargo North Dakota. This years Outlook “The State of Maine Business 2003” had plenty of examples of small businesses, housing builders, community banks, colleges, tourism success and other types of businesses doing well. We have to ask ourselves how and when will Maine be back to full speed in reality of the whole? It looks as if it is happening now, and the time is clicking away as summer is burning and they are making hay as the snow birds will leave in winter and tourism will be based on diehards and snowmobil’ers. Where does this leave wash guys. Well it looks as if we are bullish on a few areas that are over 80,000 in population in Maine. There are many cities which draw from over all population bases which we can consider. We like Augusta and Portland right away and will be looking at others after an economic recovery and in Spring of 2004. http://www.Detailguys.com would be for any large city on the 95including Bangor, Waterville, Augusta, Auburn/Lewiston/Brunswick, Portland, and Sanford/Springvale.
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