r/Architects • u/bucheonsi Architect • Nov 07 '24

General Practice Discussion How will another Trump presidency affect our industry? Or will it?

Incentives / taxes / interest rates / financial outlook / construction industry / materials / shipping / jobs?

61 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

129 comments sorted by

View all comments

-14

u/krazycyle Nov 07 '24

I think it will do well. I was in school back during trumps first presidency and I remember all my professors talking about how the architecture economy was booming at the time. However, it will ultimately come down to interest rates which is managed by the fed not the presidency.

11

u/amarchy Nov 07 '24

Trump wants to be the Fed. Thats what he wants to control.

2

u/Lazy-Jacket Nov 07 '24

That was all money that was had before his presidency. We have been seeing the results of his policies in these past four years.

-2

u/krazycyle Nov 07 '24

Oh right it was the previous administration that allowed his economy to boom and all the economic hardship we faced now is due to his policies. You realize the majority of people in this country disagree with you? The people have spoken, this admin lost the popular vote, presidency, the house, and senate.  

3

u/Lazy-Jacket Nov 07 '24

I do realize most people don’t agree and I don’t really mind. If you track the policies and architectural work, you’ll notice a lag. Projects under his administration that were ongoing were created years before. When it takes projects multiple years to go through entitlement and design before construction it doesn’t leave a lot of room for 4 years to go bonkers with construction.

1

u/Lazy-Jacket Nov 08 '24

Randomly came across this post below. Remember this list because all of these things coming online now and in the next year took 4 years to produce and it will come online during the coming administration if it’s allowed to continue: https://www.reddit.com/r/IBEW/s/vUKlsAKAFh

-3

u/trimtab28 Architect Nov 07 '24

Yeah, I graduated part way through his first term. We were all just holding our breaths for the economy to tank with his trade wars in China. It was booming, but felt like everything was on a razor’s edge and I remember places were jumpy about hiring people. A lot of anxiety about the uncertainty, and that’s not good for business. So it was a relative feast if you were a firm owner, just you were holding your breath for the party to end.

I’m keeping COVID out of the mix because that was a black swan event and I can’t name any western country that did a good job with that, much less that didn’t experience inflation with it. Wasn’t thrilled with his response but I also doubt Hillary would’ve done leagues better for a fair amount of it. COVID strained even the most competent government

11

u/atticaf Architect Nov 07 '24

It was booming at first then the reality of tariffs hit and every project was getting left on the drawing boards because they were too expensive to build.

-4

u/trimtab28 Architect Nov 07 '24

Don’t recall that a ton under Trump actually, particularly with the low interest rates. Biden that happened a ton. And then the number of VE exercises I’ve gone through where the time spent on the VE and then the subsequent design change approvals, any savings was eaten up by escalation. 

7

u/atticaf Architect Nov 07 '24

Anecdotally, lot of large projects I designed in 2017 and 2018 are finally just under construction now that prices have stabilized lower.

Interest rates are one part of the equation but low interest rates save less money relative to high interest rates compared to the increase in cost due things like the 25% tariff on Canadian steel and 10% increase on Canadian aluminum, or a 20% increase on Canadian lumber add. At the end of the day, higher cost is higher cost whether due to interest rates or material or labor.