More Than Just Trucks are in Short Supply

[VB!]

I’ve been looking for a flatbed car/equipment trailer lately. I wanted a 7-10K GVWR bare bones model so I could add what I wanted myself to it to carry our Scouts and Cat 301.8C. I couldn’t find one. Used prices were stupid high and so were auction prices. I had my eye on a 7K GVWR new one but wanted to see if I could find a 10K first for future flexibility. The price of the 7K GVWR trailer increased $700 since the first week of May and the dealer was a jerk. He didn’t update his ad, didn’t offer an explanation, and said take it or leave it so I left it. I can’t find a 10K GVWR trailer within a 150 miles of me. I found another 7K at a different place that met my needs for less and purchased it today. Only bad is it has a dovetail and I would have preferred a trailer without that.

This is where it gets interesting. The dealer had three on the lot at 10 a.m. We discussed all three, I picked one, and said I’d be there in a few hours. At 1:00 p.m. I bought the last one. The other two sold.

I asked the dealer if business was just really good. He said it was the, “wrong kind of good”. His inventory was gone because he can’t get product and he had over 80 deposits for trailers. Wait time is over 3 months.

I asked him if it was a commodity issue like they could not buy steel, tires, or something else. He said it was a labor issue. No one wants to work. The factory has 15 open fabricator positions and has only filled 3 of them. Everyone would rather stay home and collect their government checks.

I asked him who was buying the trailers. He said people getting out of California. While I was there one customer said he was going to Lake Havasu just over the border and is going to move his business there. He’s going to try and serve his Inland Empire customers from there and spend more time at The River. Another guy there was buying an enclosed toy hauler to use as a moving truck and then buy a toy to fill it when he got to Kentucky.

My son and I spent the drive home talking about the laws of supply and demand, how it effects prices, and inflation.

I got more than one “nice truck” at the lot.

 

[911Tremor]

Thanks for posting! Excellent and very informative!
Thankfully, I purchased a new Wells Cargo 7x16 Enclosed trailer to replace my 8 year old 7x12 Interstate trailer early last year (prior to the “shutdown”) and since the dealer had three in stock and no pending deals, I got a great deal on it.
I hadn’t sold my Interstate yet because I wanted to get into a new one before I sold it. Within a month, the shutdown occurred and all hell broke out, so even though I pretty much had it all serviced and cleaned up to sell it, I held off until stuff got sorted out. Good thing I did!
Three months later when the buying frenzy was in motion, I put an Ad for it on CL and within four hours I had three buyers with the cash wanting to see it! I made three appointments for the next day. Of course, that night I had all three throwing offers above my asking price for it! they didn’t want to wait until the next day! Since I already had my new one and was no longer shopping for one, I didn’t realize the whole situation! The next morning, I called a couple dealers and quickly found out that they were out of stock of most of their enclosed cargo trailers! Especially the size that I was selling.
Bottom line... I sold it to the first buyer that showed up for $2,100 more than I was asking. I showed him the offers from the two other buyers and he didn’t blink by offering $200 more than the highest one of the three.
Overall, I sold it for more than I paid for it, including the Line-X I had put in it and the tool bench and shelving! (We used it as an off road toy hauler for the kids and myself.)

I know that boats and RV prices have gone thru the roof as well!

 

[MoKan]

Yup. Buddy needed a new enclosed 7 x 24 for his business. Took him two weeks to find one within a day's drive, and price was essentially fixed at asking.

Labor is an issue, especially if anyone had furloughs or idled plants. Why work when you can get 50% (or more) of that doing nothing? (rhetorical question) The place I work is in manufacturing, and we never did either, so we didn't lose anyone, but getting new hires is a crap shoot.

The only way out of this is for the government to turn off the money printers or companies have to pay more.

 

[Potato Wilson]

Yup. Buddy needed a new enclosed 7 x 24 for his business. Took him two weeks to find one within a day's drive, and price was essentially fixed at asking.

Labor is an issue, especially if anyone had furloughs or idled plants. Why work when you can get 50% (or more) of that doing nothing? (rhetorical question) The place I work is in manufacturing, and we never did either, so we didn't lose anyone, but getting new hires is a crap shoot.

The only way out of this is for the government to turn off the money printers or companies have to pay more.

That's right. The "labor shortage" has also caused a shortage in raw materials for manufacturing so the lag in recovery will be tremendous.
I also got lucky and secured the only in-stock dump trailer in the area, a couple months before the Tremor arrived, or I wouldn't be hauling any of my shit anywhere right now.