Although it feels like construction is going through a lot of changes toward streamlining processes and automation, it really takes many years to drastically alter the function of the industry. You can probably think of many fields that used to include a lot of long work by hand that are now easily done by a machine, in some cases without the careful attention of an expert operator. At present, some jobs may eventually be replaced as a result of automation. Here’s what to watch for, and what you can do once you see the writing on the wall.

Watch Innovations in Similar Industries
Since construction tends to be an industry that adopts technology relatively late, it’s important to keep an eye on what is happening in other similar industries. You can also keep track of the trends in your field in other parts of the country, or in the world as a whole. For example, a burst of development in autonomous equipment in the mining industry made adaptation for the construction industry much quicker. These developments aren’t necessarily a bad thing, especially since so many of these jobs currently go unfilled. But if you want to know what’s going to happen to your job in the next 10-20 years, you should pay close attention to people who do similar types of work as you in different parts of the economy.

Keep Track of Automation-Heavy Fields
Although automation is starting to happen in nearly every aspect of the industry, there are certain fields that are in the process of big improvements right now. Professional trades like:

• Carpentry
• Plumbing
• Electrical

could have as many as half of their existing jobs automated within the next 30-40 years. That seems pretty far out at this point, but it’s not likely to happen overnight. If you’re planning on going into one of these fields, you may want to pay attention to what experts believe the job forecasts will look like in the next 10 years.

Avoid Knee-Jerk Reactions
When you start to think that your job may be rendered unnecessary, it is tempting to stick your head in the sand and pretend that it won’t happen to you. But this is possibly the worst choice you could make. In industries with rapid development like information technology, people can see their jobs become obsolete within a couple of years. By comparison, you probably have some time to prepare. And if you take that opportunity, you have a much higher chance of remaining relevant.

Study the Latest Techniques
The fact is the technology cannot replace the entire construction industry. There will still be a need for lots of skilled workers who can operate or monitor machinery that produces structures. If you want to have one of those jobs, you need to know how to do these things. Innovations are developing on a regular basis, and what might be a standard practice now could be extremely outdated five years from now. Paying attention to these developments, testing out new techniques whenever you have the chance, and considering adopting them into your business practices gives you the best chance at beating the competition.

Consider Changing Fields
If ever there was a case for expanding your educational opportunities, a change in the construction industry would be it. The last thing that you need is to find yourself stuck in a niche part of your field where you will struggle to diversify your services. Instead, be flexible enough that you can change your business model if it becomes clear that your field can’t sustain the number of workers in it right now. Adding an extra classification to your license or teaming up with someone in another field to provide a more complete service package are a couple of ways you could consider doing this.

Discovering that your intended career is likely to be automated in a few decades isn’t ideal. Making a plan now can help you figure out how to make your business work for the future. To begin on your construction career path, contact CSLS today!

Since COVID-19 is changing lots of industries, it may be an ideal time to rethink your processes. You’ll be spending more time on certain aspects of your workflow, while others may have to go out the window entirely. But you don’t want to go back to a pattern of overpromising and under-delivering, even if that’s common in the industry. Here are a few inefficiencies you should consider, so that your project timelines can remain accurate now and in the future.

Finding Workers
Just this spring, the construction industry in the United States laid off nearly 1,000,000 workers. It’s hard to tell at this time exactly how that will affect your ability to find skilled employees and subcontractors for your project. But since construction was already facing a labor shortage, you can expect that whatever you need someone to do, it will probably take longer to locate them. People in busy, expert fields will likely continue to have high demand for their services. As such, you may not know for sure how long it will take to secure someone’s work until you have already done so. Be sure to research averages if you don’t have a regular subcontractor for a particular task.

Moving Equipment
The time it takes to move equipment to and from the jobsite depends on:

• Where it’s currently located
• How big it is
• What it takes to get it there

Some tools are easy for you to transport, while others may require a rental company to handle delivery. Keep in mind that pandemic-related closures may cause delays in your ability to rent equipment or have it delivered to a particular jobsite. You also may have to wait to pick something up, if you are handling the delivery on your own. This will add extra time to your project delivery schedule.

Waiting on Tasks
If there was any industry that could figure out how to get work done more quickly just by adding more people, construction would be it. However, there are certain tasks that simply take a specified amount of time no matter how much you want to rush it. In a new era of staggered shifts and social distancing, you may spend more time waiting for tasks to be completed in order to move to the next step of the project. Identifying which jobs can be done at the same time, and which ones must be done in a certain order, can help you figure out how to stagger shifts for the best productivity.

Site Cleanup
For a lot of jobsites, clean up and sanitation is something that happened a couple of times a week. Now, it will almost certainly need to take much more time. This is because virus prevention requires careful sanitation at least daily, if not more frequently. Forming regular habits of clearing a particular spot of debris and sanitizing the equipment can help to make the process more efficient. But if you have to do it between tasks, you should factor that delay into your daily schedule.

Paperwork
It is usually good to have more than one person looking at agreements before you commit to them. If you are working on a public works project, it may be a requirement. This can add weeks or even a month or more to your project, depending on what paperwork you need reviewed and who needs to look at it. Although technological innovations have come a long way to make this process shorter and more efficient, you will still encounter plenty of delays in this respect. For example, the time it takes to get certain types of building permits has increased significantly in 2020. You’ll also notice a longer delay for inspectors. Keep tabs on the average wait times and don’t underestimate, so that you can factor them into your bids.

The year 2020 sure is changing the way people in construction think about efficiency. With the right education, you’ll know how to help solve those problems for your contracting business. To get started, visit CSLS today!

If you’re like a lot of people, you were raised with the idea that you’d learn a skill, get a job and keep it until you retired. The past few decades have turned that belief on its head. The concept that you’ll get a job when you graduate from school and stick with the company for the next 40 years is extremely outdated. While some people still do this, changing jobs and even careers mid-life is completely normal. Here’s how to determine if it’s the right decision for you.

Job Satisfaction
It’s true that most people don’t look for work because they love doing it more than anything else. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that job satisfaction is an important factor in your ability to keep working within a particular field for years. People who hate what they do or who have grown tired of it often realize that it spreads into the rest of their lives. When you spend a third of your time doing something that doesn’t make you happy, it’s going to be harder to enjoy yourself in your off-time. The trick is to determine whether or not it is your particular job or your career in general that’s causing the issue. If it’s the latter, you’re probably better off making an adjustment sooner rather than later.

Upward Mobility
Upward mobility might feel like an obsolete term from a completely different world, but it still plays a role in your future prospects. The ability to continue to grow in your career depends on the job and where you’re at right now. If you’re in your 30s and realizing that you’ve almost hit the max on where you could go, you have to decide if you’re OK staying where you’re at. Some people find a great deal of satisfaction in a job where they aren’t constantly having to break the mold. But if you’re looking for something with more variety, or you’re starting to feel like you’ll be doing this job forever, it might be time for a change.

Future Plans
Of course, the timing of a possible career change depends heavily on what you’re planning to do with the rest of your life. Someone who is planning to do something big like start a family or relocate may not have as many options to re-define themselves as someone who has comparatively few new things on the horizon. While many people decide to jump into a new career with both feet, it’s worth evaluating when is the best time for you to do this. Sometimes, waiting even six months or a year so you can prepare makes a successful transition much more likely.

Financial Responsibilities
For most people, the older you get, the harder it is to abruptly shift from one financial situation to another. If you have a house with a mortgage, and a family with lots of expenses every month, you’ve got fewer options than someone who is single and able to move almost anywhere. But it’s worth keeping in mind that a job transition doesn’t have to be a complete pivot from an established, comfortable situation into chaos. If you outline your liabilities, you’ll know what standards you need to be able to hit with a new career.

Transferable Skills
If you expected that the only way to change careers is effectively to start over, you might be pleasantly surprised. When you start in a new field in your 30s and 40s, people evaluating the skills you bring to the table aren’t going to look at you as if you just turned 18. This means that you may have a variety of talents or develop skills that would benefit you in your new career. Take some time to think about the soft skills you’ve picked up so far, such as:

• Professional communication
• Computer proficiency
• Networking
• Personal finance management

You might not be looking for a new job in any of these fields, but most jobs require at least a little of these.

Changing your career is never an easy decision, but it might be the best one you ever made. To start on the path to your own contracting business, visit CSLS today!

The best way to avoid contracting or spreading COVID-19 is to wear a mask when you leave your home. That’s why almost all states have guidelines on the books recommending or requiring them. But since you can’t do all your work from home, eventually you and your employees will have to go back to the jobsite. In many cases, that means you’ll need to persuade them to wear masks. Here’s what you can do.

Stay Updated on PPE Guidelines
The one constant right now is change, which means that you will need to stay updated on the current best practices. At present, until a vaccine is both available and widely used, wearing a mask and practicing social distancing on the jobsite is likely to be recommended if not required. Remember that requirements may be implemented at the state level or by the city. This means that you should plan to follow whichever rules are the strictest. In some states, inspectors are showing up unannounced and fining companies that do not comply with local regulations.

Identify Acceptable Masks
There have been many innovations in masks that people can wear with in the last few months. This doesn’t mean that all of them have the same level of protection. As a general rule, N95 masks are the best tools to avoid spreading contagion like COVID-19. But in many parts of the country, N95 masks have been prohibitively expensive or completely unavailable. This means that you may have to use something else. Keep in mind that any mask that has an open space or a mesh screen to improve air circulation is unlikely to provide nearly as much protection.

Talk to Employees About Common Problems
Ultimately, people are going to have a variety of reasons that they do not want to wear a mask. If you live in a part of California that becomes extremely hot during the summer, wearing a mask all day may be more difficult than if you live and work near the coast. Some people have common breathing conditions that can make wearing a mask regularly difficult to manage. But you won’t know which problems your employees are having until you ask them. Give workers the opportunity to speak frankly about their concerns, and make a note of them. Be sure to avoid dismissing anything out of hand, because it’s better to find a solution instead.

Look for Solutions
There isn’t going to be a solution for every single problem people have related to wearing masks. The fact of the matter is that most people aren’t accustomed to wearing them on a regular basis, especially not at work. But you know that it is something that can be done, so it’s time to research new approaches. People in industries like manufacturing or healthcare may have to wear masks all day long, every day. Research how these people manage to do it to get ideas. Consider options like:

• Ties instead of elastics
• Ear-savers that hook onto elastic loops
• Disposable masks for people working in hot weather
• A variety of mask styles, so people can choose which ones work for them

Giving your employees choices may make it easier for them to commit to wearing them.

Be Consistent
As with any work safety policy, you can only expect a high degree of compliance if you can be consistent about enforcing it. For example, you wouldn’t criticize employees for failing to wear personal protective gear that you did not provide for them. Similarly, you need to recognize that if they are unsure when you expect them to wear masks, they may follow their own instincts. Set a policy for mask usage that is clear, publicly available and easy to review on the jobsite. These steps will help to ensure that people know what is expected of them and that you will enforce the policy if they don’t follow it.

Wearing masks is part of a new normal, but it’s also a common part of practicing jobsite safety. For more information about starting your own contracting business, contact CSLS today!

The wildly popular Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), funded and administered by the federal government, is starting to evolve. At first, employers had to prove that they used the vast majority of the loan for payroll, or risk losing the ability to apply for loan forgiveness. Now, the federal government has relaxed these standards somewhat, after learning that almost one in five businesses wanted to give the funds back. Here’s a rundown of the changes, and how they affect your contracting business.

What Are the Changes to the PPP?
The original Paycheck Protection Program allowed businesses to apply for loans of up to $10 million with an immediate advance of up to $10,000. The advance itself would not have to be repaid, and companies that met certain requirements would be able to apply for loan forgiveness. These terms made the loan program so popular that business owners were struggling to find lenders who hadn’t been inundated with applications. To make the program more accessible to businesses making long-term plans, the federal government made the following changes:

• Up to 60 percent spending on payroll still eligible for loan forgiveness
• Loan period extended from two to five years
• Relaxed verification process for businesses borrowing less than $2 million

Although the program originally opened in April, these changes were approved in early June.

Why Did the Federal Government Change the Program?
The point of the PPP was to give businesses the ability to keep employees on their payroll, instead of having to furlough them or lay off a certain number of people. In the implementation of the program, however, many businesses realized that the program wasn’t as practical as they had hoped. Many companies were hoping to apply for loan forgiveness, and the process for it wasn’t entirely clear. As a result, almost one in five construction-related companies were considering returning the loans, out of worry that they would face an audit or lose the ability to have the loan forgiven.

Have the Loan Forgiveness Rules Changed?
Congress approved amendments that would change the minimum spent on payroll to be eligible for loan forgiveness from 75 percent to 60 percent. They also outlined the conditions under which they would audit the company’s use of the loan and application for loan forgiveness. Generally speaking, they said that if a business took out a loan of less than $2 million and made a good faith effort to meet the requirements for loan forgiveness, their applications wouldn’t be processed as carefully as those who requested more.

How Does More Flexibility Help Contractors?
When this loan program was initially proposed, the idea was to help people struggling in a temporary period of economic distress. A few months into the pandemic, people are realizing that this situation is anything but short-term. This means that expecting businesses to have a quick turnaround on repayment may be unrealistic or even impossible. Adding flexibility to the program gives contractors a better chance at meeting the terms required for loan forgiveness. If that makes them more likely to take the loan, it can provide additional cash flow to support them during periods where work is limited due to COVID-19 in the area.

Is the PPP Still Available?
The availability of this loan program could change at any time, and it’s not clear whether the federal government may extend the program beyond its initial end date of June 30. Many business owners have said that it is difficult to find a lender who will process the applications, although that is heavily region-specific. At present, however, the program is still in existence. Business owners who think they may benefit from it would need to apply as soon as possible.

Protecting your cash flow is an important part of managing your contracting business. To learn about everything you need to get started, visit CSLS today!

The construction industry lost almost 1 million jobs in April. Then, the industry added hundreds of thousands of new jobs in May. The numbers are still down from a year ago, but the change indicates several reasons to be optimistic about the future. Here’s a look at how the industry’s dynamic has changed throughout Spring 2020.

This Year’s Numbers
In April 2020, about 6.6 million people were employed in construction. By May 2020, that number had risen significantly to a little more than 7 million. This growth over one month happened in all sectors, like building, specialties, engineering, etc. Residential construction in particular added the most jobs, proportionally as well as the total number of new jobs. This shows a dramatic increase from earlier in the spring, although the current numbers still lag behind the same period a year ago.

Percentage Change from Last Year
As much as there is reason to be optimistic about the change from April to May, it’s worth keeping in mind that there has been a dropoff from last year. To be specific, the industry as a whole is down about 430,000 jobs when you compare May 2020 to May 2019. This may not necessarily be due entirely to COVID-19, however. There were reports in late 2019 indicating that the wave of new construction starts was beginning to slow down. Given that the industry has been running full-tilt since about 2012, that may be a natural correction.

Temporary Furloughs or Layoffs
If having nearly 500,000 jobs emerge out of the woodwork in a single month seems suspicious to you, it’s not a wrong feeling to have. It’s worth analyzing where those jobs came from. After all, replacing one job with another isn’t always the same as replacing one orange with another orange. In this case, many of the jobs lost and the increase might be easily explained by temporary furloughs or layoffs. The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to make it easier for companies in fields like construction to bring their workers back to the payroll, even if they were still working under heavy restrictions or unable to do business at all. Use of this program would allow business owners to rehire employees in May that they had laid off in April.

Rate of Re-Opening
Industry experts were expecting construction to rebound to some degree, but they may not have predicted the speed at which it seems have happened. This may be a result of the rate or re-opening in certain areas. Many parts of the country, California included, put significant limits on operations in most industries. This was intended to slow or prevent the spread of COVID-19. But as the months passed and numbers stayed constant or dropped, many states have decided to re-open their services. Although some states have chosen to lay low until they get more information, others are almost back to business as usual. While this may pose possible risks for the spread of COVID-19, it could easily account for the increasing demand for construction workers.

Project Backlogs
When something happens to your area while you are in the middle of a project, the project doesn’t just go away. Although many projects that were still in the planning stages were pulled or renegotiated due to COVID-19, there were many others that were too far into development to quit. Most businesses operate at some level of backlog as a way to protect their cash flow. While the backlog of projects for the industry has decreased since last year, it hasn’t evaporated entirely. As such, contracting businesses still need qualified workers to help complete these projects. With a long-term labor shortage, this may mean that companies have had to bring in new workers to get the job done.

Construction is a busy industry with a lot of demand, even in the midst of a pandemic. To start building a career that can last a lifetime, contact CSLS today!

Going to construction conferences used to be an opportunity to get away from your normal workflow and network, while learning about the latest practices and trying out new tools. Now that large gatherings present a much higher risk, many event organizers have shifted to virtual conferences. Here’s what to expect, and how to decide if they’re worth the investment.

Create a List of Goals
When you run your own business, everything that falls under the heading of professional development has to make the biggest bang for your buck. This means that if you’re going to invest time and money into a conference, you want to make sure that the conference is the best one to meet your needs. With a variety of virtual conferences available, you’re no longer obligated to spend money on travel or compare hotel prices in expensive cities. But you still want to get a good return on your investment. Keep these factors in mind:

• Networking
• Classes
• Discounts on products
• Demonstrations

If you know what you’re looking to achieve from a conference, it will be easier to figure out which ones are the best for you.

Look at the Lineup
In order to see if a conference could be a good fit for you, you’re going to need to look at the focus of the conference as well as the opportunities included. COVID-19 has certainly thrown a wrench into many conference organizers’ plans. But since a lot of organizations have shifted to virtual this year, you shouldn’t lose out too much due to cancellations or rebooking. There are conferences that emphasize a variety of specific aspects in construction, including:

• Sustainable building
• Technology
• Management

Once you’ve narrow down the list, take a look at their lineup of talks or demonstrations. You need several options that are interesting or relevant to your field to make the whole conference a sensible choice.

Consider Opportunities to Try Out New Tools
Virtual conferences can be a tricky thing to navigate in an industry like construction, simply because you don’t get that hands-on experience. Watching a demonstration isn’t quite the same as getting a chance to try it out yourself. However, there have been lots of recent innovations in technology built for use on the construction site. You may be able to test out some of these tools within the context of a virtual conference. If you’re not sure which software to choose or how to decide, this could be a good way to get more information.

Evaluate Networking Options
Building a network of people in your area that you can collaborate with related to your field is an important part of attending a conference. If you’re not getting the chance to meet with people in person, there should be other opportunities to network. Not everyone is adept at having conversations with people they don’t know in an online format, and conference organizers should be aware of this. Be ready to look for opportunities to talk shop with other conference attendees, as well as presenters and sponsors.

Compare Costs
When you’re first starting out with your contracting business, the cost of a conference may affect your ability to attend one or not. In this case, comparing costs and benefits can help you make a final decision. Many conferences that were scheduled for the spring and early summer were pushed back to the fall, in the hopes that they could hold those conferences in person. But many others have chosen to stick to a virtual format. This may result in a much lower cost for registration, since the conference organizers aren’t having to pay to rent conference space or hire additional services. Cheaper isn’t necessarily better, but if you can find one that checks all the boxes and doesn’t cost a fortune, you’ll have made a more practical investment.

Virtual conferences are just one more way you can learn how to grow your contracting business. To get started on a rewarding career path in construction, contact CSLS today!

There’s no doubt that COVID-19 has changed the way that many industries think about communication and productivity. In the construction industry, companies are relying on technology more than before. But what happens in six months or a year? Will you be prepared for a second wave? Industry influencers are looking for innovations in these areas, to minimize risk and keep projects moving on schedule.

Safe Entry
Right now, when incident rates of COVID-19 are still high and increasing in certain parts of the country, trying to prevent sick people from entering the jobsite is one of the most important goals. However, this has led a lot of businesses and property owners to have to invest a lot of time evaluating each person before they enter the site. This leads to lost hours and lower productivity. Software and tools that could quickly scan a person’s temperature as they walked in could dramatically speed up this process without increasing risk.

Collaboration
Working together in a time of social distancing and remote work takes on a completely different meaning. You still need to know the status of certain aspects of the project, even if the person who is doing the work is at a different part of the site or possibly in a completely different location. Collaboration tools that work in real-time make it easier for you to quickly assess where people are with a particular task. Communication tools simplify the process of asking questions and getting clarification without having to leave an app and move to another one.

Remote Monitoring
Construction is such a hands-on industry that the idea of remote monitoring may feel a little foreign. But the more that companies have access to tools and analytics that allow this, the better that contracting businesses can protect themselves and their employees while still maintaining a high level of productivity. Remote monitoring can provide a number of benefits, including:

• Health updates on employees, such as heart rate or temperature
• Safety
• Progress on a particular task
• Proximity to other workers

These elements have a lot of potential in a post COVID-19 world, as well.

Incident and Data Tracking
Municipal and state organizations are getting better at tracking the way that a single incidence of COVID-19 can spread through an area, but it’s still slow. Companies currently rely on contact tracing to discover where a particular case may have originated and how it might spread through the jobsite. They may have to wait weeks to get useful information. Instead, improvements to incident and data tracking may make it easier for businesses to accumulate data on interactions. That way, if someone who works on a large jobsite ends up testing positive for a contagious illness like COVID-19, they will have a resource to help them. It can simplify the process of finding out who else this person came into contact with, and which areas need extra sanitation as a result.

If you look back at the wave of influenza that passed through the country a century ago, you’ll notice a wide variety of technological improvements that came as a result. This pandemic is likely to make some big changes, so you’ll want to be aware of what they are and how they can help you. The right education is key. To discover what it takes to become a licensed contractor and run your own business, visit CSLS today!

Construction is going to slow down. Until experts say that they were actually wrong about their estimations. It’s hard to build and grow a business on shifting sands, and an election year can be a particularly tricky time to do so. Everyone’s waiting to see what happens and then a bunch of people in high-ranking positions may make hasty decisions based on the results. If you have a successful contracting business, you’ll be dealing with this on a regular basis. Here’s how you can make sure that you can weather these storms, even when you don’t know the forecast.

Follow Politics and Legislation
It’s easy to want to separate what is going on in politics because only a portion of it actually trickles down to your business. But you have a stake in the game, no matter what your personal positions happen to be. For example, if the fed raises interest rates, you may notice a cooling of the housing market. This could make a big difference in the way you run your business, particularly if you work in residential construction. Sudden changes to trade laws may affect your supply chain or the prices you pay. Even targeted state legislation like AB-5 is proving to have sweeping effects in a variety of industries, including construction. If you keep your eyes and your ears open for news, at least you won’t be surprised when a bill passes and becomes law.

Diversify Skills and Services
It’s hard to know where the best place to go next will be, especially when experts are trying to predict how the ground will move. When you’re first starting out, you don’t know where you will be next year, much less five years from now. As a way to hedge your bets, you may want to continue developing your skills so that you can offer a wider variety of services. You don’t want to be so spread out that all of your skills are too basic to be in demand, but you also want to avoid specializing too much. Finding the right balance between being an expert in your field and being able to keep your options open will help you pay the bills no matter where the demand is.

Pay Attention to Industry Changes
Watching the industry is just as important as paying attention to politics. Although they often go hand in hand, it’s hard to be sure how broad decisions will affect your business. See what happens to material and labor prices. Follow rises and dips in demand. Have alternatives for your supply chain or subcontractors. Keep in mind that politics changes all the time, and that the industry itself is much older.

Your own understanding of the current situation and flexibility gives you a higher chance of long-term success. Consider the border wall. There’s been a growing market for development on this project in California not long after the idea was introduced. But if the White House changes hands in 2021, these projects may be stalled or abandoned outright.

Practice Risk Management
In a big election year, you’ll often see people hedging their bets. If you’re trying to establish your business, you’ll need to take risks, but you should do it carefully. Investors might hesitate to start large projects when they don’t know what will happen to material prices or the market as a whole. This may lead people to conclude that demand in the construction industry is slowing when it really is the calm before a storm.

To keep your head, you should practice risk management in all of your processes. Minimizing waste and cutting down on the likelihood of failures keeps your business on a sure footing. It also makes you less likely to make reactionary decisions based on the results of an election.

When everyone else is caught off-guard by a big storm, you want to be the one who read the forecast. By paying attention to what’s going on around you, in the industry as well as in politics, you have a better chance of keeping your business afloat for what lies ahead. To discover the benefits of owning your own contracting business, visit CSLS today!

The last few years have put a big emphasis on commercial construction. Urban renewal in areas like Los Angeles opened up billions of dollars in projects on the docket for years into the future. But residential construction still has a long way to go before housing exceeds demand in the state. If you’re thinking about getting into residential construction, here are the risks and rewards you should consider.

California’s Housing Needs
If you had to put a label on the need for new housing in California, it might be something like “stressed and pressed.” Governor Gavin Newsom campaigned on the idea that he would fight to build 3.5 million homes by 2025. Well, it’s 2020, and that is five years away. He argued that California could have a population as high as 50 million by 2050. And while that seems like a long time to go, the pressure to build new housing is already here.

For construction professionals looking into residential development, demand is not the biggest arbiter of their success. There is so much demand that you may have a ton of options to consider. Access to skilled workers and the ability for people to afford the housing that is built makes a more significant difference in how it works out for your contracting business.

Fluctuations in Demand
If you want a sense for how variable the market can be for residential development, just read a few newspapers from the past year. In the summer of 2019, experts were proclaiming that housing was down far below 2018 levels. They hinted that the market was just starting to slow down as people have predicted would happen nationwide. But then in the fall, applications for housing permits positively exploded, blowing away the previous year’s numbers. Demand in construction tends to fluctuate by season, but this is a completely different situation. Residential construction companies have to be able to meet the demand when it comes. This might be cyclical or a constant onslaught.

Varying Housing Types
Part of the reason that housing development seems to be shifting is that it is. With a lot of cities that are already built-up, housing can only go in two directions: up or out. Out is proving to be trickier to manage, with the kind of urban sprawl that makes housing difficult to manage. No one wants Eureka to become a bedroom community for San Francisco. This leaves up. And sure enough, the dramatic increase in housing permits came mostly for multifamily units. This means that if you’re looking to specialize in single family homes, you may want to rethink that idea. By comparison, getting into multifamily housing may be an excellent consideration for long-term viability.

Housing Market Pressure
Of course, there’s what builders want to do, what property owners want to do, and what people can afford. This, plus the general trends of the housing market as a whole, creates a unique set of complications that can spur or stymie the market where you live. Right now, housing prices continue to rise virtually unchecked in many parts of the state. This means that there may be housing available, but most people can’t afford to buy it.

If you live in a particularly expensive region or you’re looking to specialize in luxury homes, you have to keep a close eye on the market. If housing prices plummet, demand for developments in certain areas may also decrease. Affordable housing always has a market, but what counts as affordable changes by the year. Researching these concerns may help you determine the best part of the state for you to establish your business.

The industry for residential housing in California is big but somewhat underprepared to meet demand. If you want to take advantage of the push for housing that people can afford in the state, now’s a great time to get started. Visit CSLS today to find out how you can begin the path to your own contracting business!