Beige Book: Southeast economic decline moderating - Birmingham Business Journal:

surrounded-assistant.blogspot.com
Sales and consumer traffic remained at low levelas inlate spring, but in line with modest expectations, accordingy to Southeastern retailers. Retailers' futures sales outlook remained subdued. Most regiona l auto dealers noted further declines in with several pointing to reduced credit availability and industry uncertaintyy as reasons for thepoor results. Reports from Realtorse indicated existing home sales were stabilizing Homebuilders noted new home inventories were trendin down ona year-over-year basis as constructioh remained at low levels and new home saless improved modestly. Home sales prices continued to decline according tomost reports.
Commercialk real estate activityremained weak. Vacancyu rates continued to rise in many parts of the putting downward pressureon rents, most notablty in the retail sector. Contractors reported more projectws being postponedor canceled. Commercial real estate players anticipate more space will becomer vacant in the coming months and that constructionm will continueto slow. Most Southeasterj manufacturers said the rate of decline in productiom and orders moderatedin April. For the coming most in manufacturing noted more optimism about future productiobnand employment. Several business contactsx reported difficulty meeting financing needsx because of restricted availabilityof credit.
Roughlhy one-quarter of non-auto retailers and one-third of non-financial/non-retail contacts cited some difficulty obtaining loanx forinventory purposes. Auto dealers, in said that obtaining vehicle inventory financingy wasvery challenging. Banking contacts continuee to indicate generally low levels of demane for new loans and increases use of existing linesof credit. Laborf market conditions continued tobe weak. Many firms reportecd additional cuts in hours or had instituted mandatory unpaied days off forsome staff.
However, the pace of layoffs appears tohave slowed, as fewer firms reported layoffs than earlier in the