Lowe's Companies Inc. (LOW)

All Comments on LOW

  • commenter
    proline5656
    May 16 05:00 PM
    Home Depot Slows Down Expansion; Still Losing Customers to Lowes [view article]
    I worked for HD for 9 terrible months. The managers know nothing. they underpay and are top heavy. After 35 years in construction, my knowledge was not utilized properly. Eric McDonald should get involved with his Dept. heads more. terrible district managers. I told them I was walking and no reply.I was at the so-called Pro-Desk, What a Joke. They are supposed to be the Pros, but the advise I heard given to some contractors and home/owners was wrong and possibly dangerous. Reply
  • commenter
    jimmyecon
    May 16 07:02 AM
    Home Depot Slows Down Expansion; Still Losing Customers to Lowes [view article]
    I mostly shop at Home Depot but sometimes do go to Lowes. The Home Depot almost always has more customers than Lowes does.

    I would like to know sales per square foot and not just comps from one year to the next. From what I have seen, it sounds almost impossible that Lowes is more successful than Home Depot.

    I understand that Lowes is growing and successful expansion results in higher percentage profit growth and I understand that Home Depot is a mature company with less opportunity to grow so it's profit growth has to be lower.

    I do think that after Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus left the company, service did decline but I have noticed an improvement since Nardelli left.

    I usually shop at the Dahlonega Georgia Home Depot. The service at that store is wonderful. Even the manager gets out on the floor and serves the customers.     Reply
  • commenter
    User 194365
    May 16 12:44 AM
    Home Depot Slows Down Expansion; Still Losing Customers to Lowes [view article]
    Some people like #2's just because they harbor the hope that #2 will someday become #1. But history is littered with #2's that never managed to make #1's. Most recent striking example: Circuit City vs. Best Buy. We all know that Lowe's is brighter, more superficially appealing. But at the end of the day, Home Depot still has the momentum in terms of sales, economies of scale, location, and, yes, reputation. As a prior poster wrote, when Lowe's wakes up in the morning, it hopes it sees Home Depot when it looks in the mirror. But lookit: Lowe's has a great deal going for it, and when this stock falls below 18 or 19, it'll be worth picking up a few shares just for when the economy turns around. People aren't buying houses, which is a fact that sellers presumably know, which means on the one hand, maybe they want to spruce up their houses in the meantime (or in preparation for putting it on sale . . . hah!), or on the other hand, that nobody's got money for nuttin', and least of all to put in granite countertops and skylights. Both HD and Lowe's are still in for many months of tough times, and in a contracting market the argument of growing market share -- well, a larger slice of a smaller pizza pie is, any way the cookie (I mean, pie) crumbles, a smaller piece altogether.
    I'll wait till two or three quarters from now before dipping my toe into the moat surrounding these two big box retailers.     Reply
  • commenter
    Earl of
    Earls
    May 13 01:59 PM
    The WSJ Is Wrong on the Housing Crisis [view article]
    No one seems to remember 'location, location, location'. These are fixed assets. Seldom does one by a house in California and move it to South Carolina. There is also the units yet to be bought as a second home for only the perchaser's use. The inventory problem is only locallized to a few states. Unfortunatly, they are large population states and skew the numbers to scare the people in Fairbanks. Reply
  • commenter
    swaps
    May 11 12:37 AM
    The WSJ Is Wrong on the Housing Crisis [view article]
    Having gone through the Real Estate Investment Trust Collapse of the 1970s I recall that unwinding took about a decade. Continental Mortgage Investors and Diversified Mortgage Investors were the subprime lenders who took on the mortgages and development deals the banks were turning down as too risky. The banks simply loaned money to DMI and CMI instead, who then loaned out the money and lost it anyway.

    The company I worked for was fortunately at the end of the list to be taken out so I had a job for eight years.

    The post Sept. 2001 boom eventually overheated from factors that included very loose lending standards that allowed prices to continually be pushed up. That has ended.

    In each area of the country home prices will have to fall to levels that are affordable for buyers who pass very strict and conservative lending criteria. Meanwhile, rising energy and food inflation is hampering consumers ability to pay down credit cards etc to meet higher standards, I would assume. Plus wages are not soaring 7 or l8 percent a year because the continual influx of illegal labor is depressing wages.
    Reply
  • commenter
    Gulfstream
    May 10 02:31 PM
    The WSJ Is Wrong on the Housing Crisis [view article]
    My gosh what was I thinking! How can we expect government agencies to look for changes to the problems to the housing problems through such things as changing zoning laws to allow in-law quarters when gross receipts of housing permits will go down, water company’s hookup fees will fall along with sewer hookups?

    I forgot the Sheriff of Nottingham is still alive and well and in competition for our own money.

    Reply
  • commenter
    Gulfstream
    May 10 02:25 PM
    The WSJ Is Wrong on the Housing Crisis [view article]
    It seems that the demographics do favor a return to the urban setting because of several factors such as cost of energy to commute and the desire of the newer generations to live closer to the “action”. Politicians and local governmental planning agencies/departments could add a helping hand in the problem to prevent even more housing coming on to the market under the given scenario.

    If the planning departments allowed “granny flats” where possible, Mom and or Dad could easily allow one of the kids to take over the house by either selling or a multiple of other means including gifting and move into the newly built “in-laws” quarters built over the garage, on the side by the pool or wherever.

    It seems that the change to allow more in-laws quarters solves a whole raft of problems such as less housing coming on the market, the added work of construction and the ability to have someone near an aging loved one.

    But the big problem is that politicians and bureaucrats need to get going. That is a slow moving bus!

    Reply
  • commenter
    SHartwell
    May 09 04:27 PM
    The WSJ Is Wrong on the Housing Crisis [view article]
    "Existing Inventories" is a difficult concept.

    Suppose I'm in Chicago and want to move to Denver. I put my home on the market (that's 1 home in existing inventories). But I ask too much and it doesn't sell. And I won't buy a house in Denver until my Chicago home sells.

    Jim lives in Denver and wants to move to Miami. He puts his house on the market (that's 2 homes in inventory). It's ideal for me, but I won't buy it because my house hasn't sold.

    Sallie lives in Miami and wants to move to Chicago. She puts her home on the market (that's 3). It's ideal for Jim, but he's not biting because I haven't bought his house.

    This situation creates an "existing inventory" of three houses for sale. Months of inventory looks even worse, because homes aren't being sold at a very fast pace.

    But then I finally get realistic I finally get realistic about price and sell to Sallie. I buy Jim's house. Jim buy's Sallie's house. POOF! The "existing inventory" is gone - without any need for household formation...

    Because of this, many people focus on the number of vacent houses. This number looks big (all time high, they say), until you realize that it's been on an uptrend for 40 years - and it really isn't that much more than it was 1, 2 and 5 years ago.

    The builders are currently building at a rate much lower than household formation, whereas the problem was created when they built at a rate much higher than household formation. This will eventually work itself out - just like any commodity cycle.

    The investment decision rests on just how long you think this will take...     Reply
  • commenter
    redriver
    May 09 03:05 PM
    The WSJ Is Wrong on the Housing Crisis [view article]
    In the past only 6% of retirees will have moved more than 50 miles away from where they raised their children. I am sure that the coming baby boomer retirement wave will increase that percentage but not by the implied amount I constantly see in these types of articles (both bull and bear stances). Also, 85% of baby boomers will need their social security benefits to make "retirement" possible. Combine that with the fact that most then will have to sell their current homes in order to purchase a new one in a different location leads me to believe that the baby boomer rescue concept is about as well conceived or thought through as the housing bailout plan. All written as if Peter Pan was the intended reader. Less is indeed the new More and they'll be sure to make it as hip as possible so that they can stomach the taste. Reply
  • commenter
    Polabair
    May 09 10:47 AM
    The WSJ Is Wrong on the Housing Crisis [view article]
    Dear Happy,
    Good jobs...Americans need to buy GOODS and services made and provided by Americans. Look on the bottom of your toaster. That's where the good jobs went.
    Have a nice day...     Reply
  • commenter
    User 191061
    May 09 01:44 AM
    Home Depot Slows Down Expansion; Still Losing Customers to Lowes [view article]
    Bring back Bernie Markus and Arthur Blank, the 2 guys that started HD. They knew how to treat their employees and to run a successful
    business. I'm pretty sure the majority of HD employees are sour and bitter because of the crap management puts them through. I know I worked there 6 years ago. I remember after being there a week in the beginning an Asst. Mgr. came up to me and said, "If you ever pull that Sh-t again, I'll fire your f--king a__." He said that because I told a customer, "If you go get a cart I would be glad to help you load you merchandise." I guess the customer didn't believe they needed to get a cart! That's just one of the mellower stories I have. HD needs to clean up the stores. Find decent management, and please get rid of the day labors in the parking lot. I'm tired of them sitting on my car when I'm in the store shopping. I have never seen a laborer on Lowes property! The day laborers also urinate all over the parking lot . The security guards seem to be amigos with all the day laborers. Maybe the security guards use to be the day laborers. HD treat your employees and customers with respect or you'll go down the tubes just like Kmart.     Reply
  • commenter
    Happy
    Destiny
    May 09 12:53 AM
    The WSJ Is Wrong on the Housing Crisis [view article]
    This article misses a key determinate in real estate demand - New Household Formation. At the same time that seniors are downsizing, young families and will be buying. Out here in California there is a huge, let me repeat, huge number young people who will be forming households in next years and indefinite future. It is the same group of people that all th right wing Republicans are excoriating as the root cause of our trouble. These are the children of the wave after wave of immigrants that have come into the country in the last 15 years. If we would simply realize that these workers children are going to make a contribution to our country, we might be able to make the investment in education for these young people so they can get good jobs, start new businesses, and buy all those homes the old school americans are vacating... Reply
  • commenter
    dlaw
    May 08 05:25 PM
    The WSJ Is Wrong on the Housing Crisis [view article]
    The WSJ focus on new homes is silly. There's 10 months supply of existing homes out there - officially and that represents 10 times the number of new homes. That number may have peaked but, as this article indicates, we should not expect that inventory to go down steeply.

    And most glaring is the WSJ author's failure to either realize or acknowledge that his affordability argument fails to acknowledge that we are arguably in an affordability TROUGH. Mortgage rates may not get back up to the 18% of the 80's the author cites but they are unlikely to go lower any time soon. The author fails to mention that the '91 rate was better than 9%.

    But doesn't that make his argument for him?

    No, because what house owners want to see is rising LIQUIDITY in the housing market. And that's where the WSJ author's argument falls apart. Since the 80's the US market has not only seen a reduction in interest rates, but also a tremendous increase in total credit available for housing. Thus we have seen home ownership RATES in this country have increase dramatically since '94 and peak in 2004. The WSJ author fails to note that the '91 crash in real estate prices was in the middle of ten years where home ownership rate basically went sideways.

    To speak to Vikram's point about household formation, the last time home ownership RATES peaked and fell like this was '80-'81 to '86-87.Banks are lending cheaply, yes, but it is unlikely they will lend more cheaply. During the last fall in home ownership rates, mortgage rates fell about 45% or eight thousand basis points - eight thousand.

    Does anyone think we're going to see 3% mortgages? In 2002 the US mortgage security market surpassed the Treasury market in liquidity. Is anyone anticipating that kind of increase in securitization?

    The problem is exactly household formation. You can call a two-percent drop in home ownership rates a loss of two million *owner-occupied* households. I would not expect landlords to offer a price subsidy for taking up that slack. If we need two million new landlords then housing prices have to get to a place where it is profitable to rent.     Reply
  • commenter
    kingchuck
    May 08 03:42 PM
    The WSJ Is Wrong on the Housing Crisis [view article]
    FINANCING will always be the key to real estate prices. Aside from the normal cyclical up and downturns weighed in by greed and fear, pricing and valuation of usable and relatively desirable homes and real property is a direct function of the availability, cost, and terms of purchase financing or (F.A.C.T). It is the ultimate ingredient that makes or breaks real estate market prices.

    While argument is plentiful for the law of supply and demand to be the governing factor for pricing and valuation, one need not forget that it is financing itself (or FACT) that keys the pricing that directly affects and determines real estate supply and demand cycles.

    Demand for desirable, affordable, and well priced real estate is a given. To measure or predict housing and real estate pricing/valuation trends use the FACT gauge.


    Reply
  • commenter
    gracec
    May 08 02:51 PM
    The WSJ Is Wrong on the Housing Crisis [view article]
    Need some input . Some have said that the tax credit of 250k /500k capital gains exemption spurred some of the boom in home prices (it got factored into home appreciation). They're still selling the no money down thing here in the inland empire which is still scary. By the way, all these people with foreclosures on their credit records what happens to their ability to buy the next house when the recovery happens? Most of the people were young who got caught up and now are mostly upside down in their homes. Also here in the california they have mello roos which is additional tax on new homes on top of your property tax of 1% which sometimes is double (1.7-1.8 depending on where you live) to pay for the cost of new schools, new roads, etc and this is an indefinite tax. It doesn't go away after a few years - it's unclear when it stops. With the avg home price in california that's an additional 6-9k a year in taxes on top of your regular property tax. So most people would rather buy a house which is 8 years old and save on the tax. Plus the empty neigbhorhoods in these new developments are depressing, unkept lawns, renters living near you rather than owners due to all the speculators. The worst parts are the new developments that have HOA -home owner association dues- which are not tax deductible and as more homes are foreclosed I've been hearing from a lot of home owner associations that they're forced to increase the fees because less people are paying the community dues. Also harder to sell. Also what happens when all these high paying jobs are outsourced to china and india or somewhere else? I've got friends who have masters in biology laid off at Amgen who are now working as salesclerks and coffee baristas just to make ends meet. They've been laid off for over 1 yr now. Then we have all those unemployed people from the housing boom- real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and everyone ancillary to that. Reply

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