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Hampton Roads Housing/Real estate/and Economy

urbanvb

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odumonarch Whistle-Stop

odumonarch

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Just more motivation to decrease our reliance on the military. It was bound to happen sooner our later. Even this war will end and when it does you can expect an even bigger decrease in defense spending than what was just announced. We really need to get the ball moving on diversification of our economy.

Which means that ODU, NSU and TCC is going to have to expand to accommodate more students' needs. It helps to have stronger colleges in area that diversify the economy. Norfolk got a real good hospital in Sentara, which gets a lot of employees from ODU and TCC. There. But Norfolk needs high-tech jobs, and that ODU is doing whatever they can. I think colleges in HR area are behind the curve in providing jobs because they started in the Depression era rather than before 1900. ODU started in 1930, and NSU started in 1935. ODU was then known as the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary, while NSU was the Norfolk Division of the University of Hampton (or other college).

ODU and NSU are in the process of expanding so their students can be better off when they graduate to prevent the "brain drain" that is affecting the entire region. Yes, HR needs to reduce their reliance on the military. Back in the early periods of Reagan presidency, when military was in high issues/priorities, defense spending made up about 30% of Norfolk and HR's economy. Now, it makes up just 20%, with the others taking the pie are tourism, retail, and services. I know it stinks, but ODU and NSU are pressurized to expand and put more people in programs so they can be better off as engineers, doctors, etc rather than go back to retail and military and be chronic rednecks like the ones in the South.

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varider
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https://www.virginiabusiness.com/article/2023-va-hotel-revenues-up-12-9-over-pre-pandemic-as-of-may/   Driven largely by tourism, hotel revenues in Hampton Roads led the state, rising 27.4% hig

urbanvb
urbanvb

This article is about the state of the malls in the area. Personally, I find it a little sad that most malls are perishing while only the strong survive. I was in Lynnhaven yesterday and was surprised

varider
varider

That's embarrassing. We have to be largest area with the least amount of business activity. Richmond even has more industrial space than we do. We are LOSING. 

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hoobo Burg

hoobo

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On Mad Money last night, Cramer's lead off pick was Norfolk's own Portfolio Recovery Associates. They've been mentioned in Fortune and BusinessWeek for some time, as well. They're a repo man for bankrupt businesses. Apparently, they're growing strong and have good long-term potential. Although Amerigroup stumbled this past year, I think we have a lot of strong young home-grown companies. We don't need to chase after F-500 headquarters but instead focus on nurturing home-grown businesses so that they turn into F-500 companies. Of course we can still go after F-500 regional offices.

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rusthebuss Metropolis

rusthebuss

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On Mad Money last night, Cramer's lead off pick was Norfolk's own Portfolio Recovery Associates. They've been mentioned in Fortune and BusinessWeek for some time, as well. They're a repo man for bankrupt businesses. Apparently, they're growing strong and have good long-term potential. Although Amerigroup stumbled this past year, I think we have a lot of strong young home-grown companies. We don't need to chase after F-500 headquarters but instead focus on nurturing home-grown businesses so that they turn into F-500 companies. Of course we can still go after F-500 regional offices.

Everytime one of our companies turn to a F500 company they get bought out. Take Furgesson for example.

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hoobo Burg

hoobo

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Everytime one of our companies turn to a F500 company they get bought out. Take Furgesson for example.

Ferguson's HQ is still in Newport News and is basically the North American HQ of Woseley. Ferguson is a subsidary of Woseley. Same goes for Newport News SB. It is a subsidary of Northrup Grumman. Dollar Tree is on the cusp of F-500 status. NS and Smithfield aren't being bought but are doing the buying. Dollar Tree, NS, and Smithfield are leaders in their industries.

Ferguson and NNSB were small compared to competitors. PRA and Amerigroup are behemoths in their industries. Amerigroup is a leader in MediCare managed health plans which is a risky business. UnitedHealth, Aetna, and Wellpoint want no part of that risk so Amerigroup is safe. Amerigroup is the buyer of smaller firms. PRA has only 15% of the revenue of its largest competitor, however it has the largest market cap making it difficult for another company to buy it unless that comapny is GE's corporate loan operations. Trader is also a leader in its niche. Anyway, if they are bought, because of their centralized persence, I don't see them going the way of Jackson Hewitt which was decentralized, but rather becoming another Ferguson or NNSB.

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rusthebuss Metropolis

rusthebuss

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I'm guessing Ford's restructuring is not going to affect the F-150 plant significanly since it makes a best-selling truck and is one of, if not, the most efficient Ford assembly plant. Anyone have concrete details?

From what I hear that its not one of the plants on the slate to be wiped out. Most of the plants on the list are the ones that make the Taurus, and the explorer

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Telmnstr Burg

Telmnstr

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Hello, sorry for being late. I saw that article :-) It got torn up on the bubble blogs. The guy has a heavy interest in promoting real estate. It's simply a credit bubble, and it will end badly. It just needs to pop, real estate can return to proper affordability without risky lending, and life moves on.

Too bad the investment wasn't in business.

Anywho, bad news for NASA Langley... which is sad, as I really like NASA.

The gov't spending thing does make me wonder. With the huge deficit, will the next president cut military spending and force things like JFCOM to scale down? I've worked for the gov't in the past. There is meat that can be trimmed for sure. The flip side is, the best paying jobs in this region (that I see) are directly tied to the gov't. So yea, wealth redistribution has it's advantages.

Not unless you own a title loan business or rim shop.

It's interesting that Portfolio recovery was on Cramer... That is good news. I'm not heavily familiar with them other than they are a collections agency. I've seen their ads looking for agents. Anyone know what they pay? How many do they employ in the local economy? Do the peons make good money or min wage?

As far as .coms, we missed it because we have nothing. We had a few tech companies during that time, but most of them disappeared. Great Bridge failed hard. OOP.com sold out. The local Decipher which makes trading card games recently downsized from 120 to 10 or something. It was in business week (I'm told).

Kind of sad to hear that.

I work for a small tech company in HR. It's wierd. They recruit people to the region when possible. They claim to have a hard time finding local talent, but I don't buy it. I've referred them local talent and they didn't move on it. I speculate they feel the local talent isn't good enough or something.

I see gov't contractors as wealth redistribution. Many of them apparently make 2x+ on top of the employees salary. If you earn $100k/yr, your company bills $200k/yr on top of you as overhead. That seems extreme to me, but I guess it's how the contractors afford the class A office space.

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hoobo Burg

hoobo

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Wolseley Posts Surging Sales

Here's a bit of neat news for HR.

Wait a second. I couldn't believe the numbers so I visited Wolseley's site. For fiscal 2005 they did indeed have over $20 billion in sales. North America does make up 60% of its sales, however, its American and Canadian operations produced 70% of its products sold by value. We're talking about an HQ overseeing $14 billion worth of production and having $12 billion in regional sales. And they want to double that. Nice coup on the HQ. Norfolk Southern has $8 billion in sales and Smithfield is at $12 billion. Ferguson by itself is a $6 billion company, but now NN is getting a $14 billion company. Like I said before, I don't care if their corporate office is somewhere else, a regional or national HQ of a huge company isn't something at which to thumb one's nose.

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mercuex Whistle-Stop

mercuex

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Here's a fun anecdote. Here at work, I usually listen to a British classical station that broadcasts online, Classic FM. Apparently the release of the New World up in the UK is a big deal and they've been talking about it a fair bit up there. In fact, today they had a contest where the station has been giving away prizes of a vacation package to listeners to visit Hampton Roads for 11 Days, all expenses paid.

It's just so funny to hear about them talk about Virginia all the way up in London and to listen to people, upon hearing they've won, get real excited. I can just imagine this one lady flying into one of our Airports (probably PHF or RIC) and taking a vacation here. It's just so neat.

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johnhowell Whistle-Stop

johnhowell

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Here's a fun anecdote. Here at work, I usually listen to a British classical station that broadcasts online, Classic FM. Apparently the release of the New World up in the UK is a big deal and they've been talking about it a fair bit up there. In fact, today they had a contest where the station has been giving away prizes of a vacation package to listeners to visit Hampton Roads for 11 Days, all expenses paid.

It's just so funny to hear about them talk about Virginia all the way up in London and to listen to people, upon hearing they've won, get real excited. I can just imagine this one lady flying into one of our Airports (probably PHF or RIC) and taking a vacation here. It's just so neat.

I wonder why the contest was a trip to Hampton Roads and not a larger area on the east coast like New York, DC, or a warmer climate, Miami. Hmm. In the contest did they specifically say Hampton Roads?

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urbanfan Hamlet

urbanfan

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I wonder why the contest was a trip to Hampton Roads and not a larger area on the east coast like New York, DC, or a warmer climate, Miami. Hmm. In the contest did they specifically say Hampton Roads?

The New World is a movie that depicts Jamestown and the life in early america. I would assume that because the movie and real life situation occured here in hampton roads, that is why they are offering a trip to hampton roads.

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johnhowell Whistle-Stop

johnhowell

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The New World is a movie that depicts Jamestown and the life in early america. I would assume that because the movie and real life situation occured here in hampton roads, that is why they are offering a trip to hampton roads.

Oh yeah that's right. And 2007 is the big 400th anniversary.

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