Lowes Financial Reports
Last Updated on Sunday, 11 July 2010 07:43 Written by admin Saturday, 10 July 2010 08:36
Lets make another excursion into an overview of lowes. I know you expect us here at lowes coupon to always focus on do it yourself tips as well as ways to save money. And as you all know we are not affiliated with lowes companies but we must be their biggest fan. Our goal is to absolutely encourage everyone to shop at lowes home improvement and save money all at the same time – which is the goal isn’t it?
So today lets cover much of the details about lowes coupons home improvement itself. Maybe the more you learn about this fantastic company the more likely you will be to go and shop shop shop.
First the financial’s from the latest reports. To start Lowes home improvement is exactly as the name states – a home improvement store. As of this year lowes coupon home improvement has over 1,700 stores throught the United States and Canada. That totals over 193 million square feet of retail space packed full of everything you need for home improvement. Lowes home improvement serves both retail and commercial contractors but primarily they serve homeowners, renters and commercial business customers. Suprisingly many of these are do-it-yourself (DIY) customers and do-it-for-me (DIFM) customers who utilize the lowes home improvement sales programs which signifies this niche offering success. The commercial customers are made up of both contractors as well as residential contractors. What is amazing about lowes is that they actually opened over 60 stores in 2010 – after years of nationwide recession they still can open new stores.
Now let us talk the most recent performance of their stores. It may sound unbelievable but the lowes companies posted net income as up 2.7% in the first quarter. They attribute this to people spending more money on home improvement projects and buying more expensive items like grills and riding mowers. In total they earned $489 million, or 34 cents a share, up from $476 million, or 32 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue in the period, which ended April 30, rose 4.7 percent, to $12.39 billion.
Lowes thus has posted earnings higher than expected and they beat the street expectations – you know we at lowes coupon want to congratulate lowes for their success and know that their superior service and pricing make the difference. Lowes also raised its earnings outlook for the year but the companies forecast for the full year fell short of analysts’ expectations. – ironically enough. The chief executive, reported homeowners were again taking on do it yourself major projects and buying higher end items items. He warned that the higher earnings do not mean we are in a total rebound and recovery but the numbers were encouraging.
“We’re optimistic we’ll continue to see solid sales through the balance of the year with gradual improvement in core demand, but we still view 2010 as a year of transition for our industry, and it will likely be 2011 before we see significant growth,” he said.
In a related story. Analysts reported a combination of trends and factors. Consumers are building up the need to refurcish and improve their homes . They are feeling more safe that they wuill be able to work and keep their jobs through this recession and that it was time to begin spending money on their homes Home Depot in Burbank, Calif. Lowe’s and Home Depot had better-than-expected profits. At both home depot and lowes home improvement, the largest home improvement retailers in the United States, posted better-than-expected earnings. They both maintained that they were not forced to turn to major sales as much as in 2009. They also reported that many custoemrs trended toward spening on higher end items and carpet etc.
Of the top forty United States home improvement markets, almost all posted improvements over last quarter and last year. Even California showed sales growth at stores open at new stores – this is a comon indicator of retail sector growth.
While no one expcts robust growth – this sign of consumers venturing out and purchasing is a good indicator that things at least can begin to stabilize. Both Home Depto and lowes posted good numbers and that is a transition we at lowes coupon are encouraged to see. As much as we hate to admit it – wwhats good in the economy for home depot is good for lowes.
This indicator does not mean that the home improvement stores are out of the woods but it does look like they both will survive and weather this incredible economic storm. Many people do not think of it ewxactly as it is but there is a tremendous amount of re-hab projects going on as people improve the bank REO’s for re-sale. This portion of the market is oftentimes overlooked but account for a significant niche segment that is bolstering sales – this is according to the writers here at lowes coupon. It’s not just the homeowner – its the small re-habber that is buying a lot. We have easily purchased a couple hundred thousand in the past months for these projects alone.
Of course the housing industry is still a mess but it appears homeowners still suprisingly enough want to live in nicely remodeled homes. Good for lowes, good for home depot, good for lowes coupon!
Get Your Permits! Lowes Coupon Example
Last Updated on Sunday, 11 July 2010 07:44 Written by admin Friday, 9 July 2010 06:45
I was thinking recently on how so many people are catching up on old projects now that the housing market is stabilizing a little. It seems that all of the old projects are finally shaking themselves out. As many of you know we at Lowes Coupon do a lot of entitlement work in southern California. Usually larger projects but lately we have found ourselves doing a lot of single family infill completions. In the next series of posts I will cover some case studies. For example a customer recently brought me a garage he had built by who he says was a 
licensed contractor and who clearly built the garage without a permit.
For the sake of the readers lets cover several issues that were resolved – this will help you with your general knowledge of what to do and not to do.
First mistake was the owner did not check out the so called contractor – he failed to look anything up and is paying dearly for it. This happens time and time again. Somehow owners just trust the person in front of them and start handing over significant amounts of money. This particular homeowner I believe was won over by greed. The garage he was building was very large and tall. 40X40 with 12 foot walls with a gable that reached almost 20 feet all attached to a manufactured home of all things. For those that are “in the know” you cannot “attach” to a manufactured home but must leave a 1” breezeway between the garage and the home – but I digress. Anyhow he was getting the entire structure completed for $15,000. Now $20,000 would be reasonable for this particular garage but this was built during the housing boom. So really it should have cost around $30,000. $20,000 would be the price today. Even the best Lowes do it yourself training could not help you do this one. This one required a professional. Anyhow it was greed and a lack of thoroughness that caused this project to go downhill fast.
Second mistake was not pulling permits. Now properly addressing the first mistake would have cured this second one. Now we at Lowes Coupon are all for the do it yourself – but 20 foot gables on a 40×40 garage – well just pouring the foundation is a little much for anyone but true professionals. Permits are very important. I understand not wanting to pull a permit when you change out a toilet but trying to build a garage with a contractor you have not “checked out” is not wise. There is a reason that cities require permits. It is primarily for public safety. It is so that a trained person can not only verify that the structure was designed properly but also so you have a 3rd party coming by at various stages to ensure it is being built to the plans. These 3rd party verifications are critical to ensure public safety. Design flaws can take down anything. We have all seen the video of the bridge that began to sway and then eventually fell down before it was ever put into regular use? That was built with professionals but for some reason they did not “catch” the flaws. Getting a permit puts your design through “plan check”. “plan check” is more than just a 
hassle – plan check is there to check your plans. It allows someone to review your archetects work to ensure compliance with every single design rule. It’s like a spell checker – if you read your own work you can miss the same error 20 times over – but when another reads your work they can oftentimes correct what your overlook.
So that’s the lesson. Do not be taken in by a cheap price – you can pay a cheap price for someone to weed your garden but do not try to skimp on a 1600 square foot, 20 foot tall, garage. For that you are asking for trouble.
By the way we are still in plan check with this garage. It is going to cost $15,000 to fix at the minimum. First they allowed the structure to lean on the roof of the manufactured home. This is not allowed as a manufactured home is to be completely structurally independent of the accessory building, in this case the garage. Then comes the sheer wall. Sheer wall is very important to keep your building from falling – it allows extra support for the misc pressures on a building. Then there is the foundation. Yikes! Can I say that? They did not put any footings on th foundation. So basically there is a slab of concrete with a 40×40 garage on top that is 20 feet high and leaning on a mobile basically sitting on a slab of concrete that can slip at any time because there are no footings holding it in place – and this is California – one good Earthquake and this thing could easily come down and kill someone. So now they are talking about digging below the 4 corners of the slab to build 4×4 (that’s 4 feet by 4 feet ) footings 3 feet deep with rebar epoxied into core holes in the top foundation. I think the engineer is crazy and they should start from scratch. They are going to be spending a lot of money at Lowes Home Improvement and hopefully lowes has mercy on them and gives them a discount equivalent to a Lowes Coupon or even lowes coupons.
Lesson learned and hopefully you enjoyed the little case study – please, do things right the first time. It will save you a lot of hassle later.