Tishman: How Construction Is Dealing With Crisis
Daniel Tishman, Tishman Construction chairman and CEO, shared his outlook for the industry on CNBC's Squawk Box this morning.
Construction Through the Crisis
"Construction's a bit of a lagging indicator. For companies like ours, we have a backlog. The average duration of our projects is 24 to 30 months. Our greatest worry is that if the architects aren't designing today, 24 months from now we won't be building, and the architects' billings have decreased over the last seven months."
Infrastructure & Politics
“For our industry certainly a huge issue, which has not gotten a lot of traction yet, is infrastructure. There’s talk about a bailout for the auto industry, which employees somewhere around three quarters of a million to a million people. The construction industry is about ten-fold that.”
Where the Hazards May Lie
“Certainly in the real estate industry leverage has become something we’re all very aware of – way too overleveraged.”
Reasons for Optimism
“We are seeing tremendous declines in the cost of doing construction. We’re buying contracts in Las Vegas today 20 percent below what we were buying them for six months ago. That’s a tremendous advantage for those people who are putting construction in place.”
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