The Forgotten Real Estate Housing Industries

Diana Olick received a chart from Sageworks, Inc, a company that does financial analysis of privately-held companies, showing rankings of the worst-performing sectors this year and last, based on the extent of revenue declines in each period. and eight out of 10 are real estate-related. Real Estate Land development companies, logging companies, and real estate agencies led the way for biggest losers in 2008, and other real estate home related industries pepper both lists -- in fact, aside from automobiles and mining, there are nothing but real estate housing related industries on both lists. So where are the bailouts for them? As Olick says, "while we all worry so much about the auto industry, I find it astounding that we don't pay all that much attention to the battered industries behind the battered real estate housing market. It seems as if government is focused mainly on all the troubled borrowers, with not much attention paid to the businesses behind real estate housing."