Just two years removed from record construction highs, Villa Rica ended 2008 with record low numbers as local contractors and building suppliers continue to scramble to stay afloat.

Riding a local residential construction boom that began in the late 1990s, Villa Rica peaked in 2006 with a record 577 residential building permits and a total of 625 building permits, which includes the 48 commercial permits issued that year.

Those numbers fell 63 percent in 2007 and the recently released year-end numbers for 2008 show residential construction in the city has nearly bottomed out with no immediate end in sight.

Villa Rica finished the year with a total of 70 building permits for new construction - 38 residential and 32 commercial. By comparison, there were some months in 2006 when the city had more than 90 new building permits in a single month.

Chris Elliot, who owns EAS Contractors and Caliber One Construction, began seeing the signs for a residential construction collapse a few years ago and switched his priority to commercial construction.

“I saw the writing on the wall back in 2003 and 2004,” he said. “I saw the clientele who were starting to buy houses and I started noticing that people were putting less money down. It was amazing they could even afford the houses we were building. There were several factors that I kind of recognized, and it was taking longer to flip over inventory.”

When Villa Rica officials begin formulating the city’s anticipated revenues for the coming fiscal year - which begins in April 1 - they poll local builders to see what construction they see on the horizon so the accompanying permits, inspections and other revenues can be calculated. Last year, the number of builders doing business in the city numbered 85, but this year those numbers have dwindled to a handful as many builders have gone bankrupt, left the business or gone on to build in other areas where the prospects are better.

After six years in the construction industry, Brian Gibson of the Baltic Group is one of those local builders who has called it quits. He began in the residential construction industry working as a superintendent for Cambridge Homebuilders, building about 100 houses per year, but last spring when the industry collapsed the company couldn’t afford to pay him. With optimism that it was going to be a short-lived trend, he formed his own construction company, building about seven houses under his name and a handful of others for his brother-in-law before deciding to hang up his tool belt for good.

“In a nutshell, we just weren’t making any money,” he said. “I got out of the fire department to get into construction, but I should have stayed with the fire department.”

Gibson said that when he started his construction business the subdivision in which he was building was beginning to see increased traffic, so he thought the company would be able to limp through the downturn in the economy. However, three months after he started the bottom dropped out of the market.

“It just didn’t happen,” he said. “They’re putting more restrictions on you now when everybody’s broke. You’ve got to have big money backing you, and everybody who had big money is bankrupt right now.”

Gibson is looking to make a fresh start in a new industry by opening his own trucking business with no plans to return to construction even if the market begins to rebound.

“If I can make a living with this, I’ll probably never build another house because it left such a bad taste in my mouth,” he said. “I enjoyed building houses, but when it says ‘builder costs’ on these signs they aren’t lying. Everybody thinks you’re lying and you’ve got $30,000 left in it, but that’s just not feasible. If you can make $500 on a house right now you’re doing good. The banks are taking them back and selling them for $20,000 below cost and then turning around and suing the builders, and I just don’t want any part of it.”

Even with the residential construction collapse, commercial construction has remained relatively steady the past year in Villa Rica, but it too is beginning to dry up.

“Commercial has kind of slowed down a little bit too because the credit market slowed down this past year,” Elliot said. “Things have always been pretty steady on the commercial side, but right now is the first time I haven’t had anything on the books in 10 years. Things are going to have to turn around to help us out, but right now we’re hanging on.”

Elliott said his company is bidding on several upcoming projects, but with everyone else looking for work as well, it makes it more difficult.

“When the construction industry goes down everybody jumps in on the same jobs,” he said. “It’s basically survival of the fittest.”

Brian Drury, assistant manager of 84 Lumber on Highway 78 just outside of Villa Rica, said suppliers such as his business, Plymart, Pro Build and Wheeler’s are feeling the effects of the builders’ hard times, and it is forcing them to downsize.

“Suppliers aren’t doing that well either,” Drury said. “Without people to buy the product, there’s no way they can stay in business.”

The local 84 Lumber has seen sales drop more than 50 percent in the last year, and by not dealing with a lot of commercial builders, the only real product being moved is special order items for renovation and remodeling jobs.

“We may still be a privately held company, but we still have to adhere to budgets and such things,” he said.

Villa Rica’s permit numbers reflect this new trend, with 22 building permits issued in the “other” category, which city building officials said is mostly made up of remodeling permits as potential home sellers attempt to add value to their homes in anticipation of the real estate market turning around.

Drury said he believes things will get worse before they get better, and the only way suppliers will be able to stay in business is to maintain services, and hold on to what contractors they do have. However, those whose business relies primarily on the construction industry will have trouble keeping their doors open.

“There’s a whole bunch of hearsay going on right now, rumors left and right, but as far as trends that I’ve seen, I don’t see things turning around in the next year,” he said. “I think things will hit rock bottom within the next six months and then things will begin to pick back up.”