These may be golden times for remodelers and small builders, but that doesn't mean you're sending any of your increased revenues to your suppliers any faster.
That's one of the conclusions that can be reached from a new report by one of the principal credit management firms for lumberyards and specialty building material suppliers. BlueTarp has created the chart above in which it tracked since 2008 the proportional rises and falls of accounts it manages that were at least one, 30, or 60 days past due. Each data point is indexed to the dollar total of 60-day overdue accounts as of spring 2008. Thus, for instance, in June of this year there were 59% as many dollars 60+ days overdue as there were nine years earlier.
BlueTarp, which manages roughly 120,000 accounts on behalf of 2,000 building material suppliers nationwide, noted that delinquencies started off relatively high, shrank during the Great Recession and then began rising again around 2013, reaching a plateau in 2015. The Portland, Maine-based firm credits the low amount of delinquent payments in 2011-2012 to the "survival effect," in which financially weak contractors got out of business at the same time as dealers tightened their lending standards.
As for the current delinquency rates, "Our interaction with dealers suggests they are interpreting very low unemployment, record stock market, and high consumer confidence as suggestive that risk levels must be low, too," BlueTarp CEO Scott Simpson said. "This is an example of good news contagion--since these things are good, risk must be good too." After all, numerous signs point to these being some of the best times ever for remodelers, and new-home construction keeps rising modeslty, so one would assume contractors would have better cash flow and thus find it easier to pay their bills on time.
But, as BlueTarp's experiences show, that's not exactly the case.
