Northwest Indiana region workers cope with economic storm

For each of us, the slowdown in the economy here and across the globe means something different: Fewer nights spent dining out for some, fewer days at work for others.

The Post-Tribune offers reflections on hard times from workers in some of the hardest-hit sectors of the economy: A Crown Point mortgage broker facing a chastened, changed industry and the slowest real estate market in a generation; a Hobart car salesman with plenty of cars, generous incentives, and only a few customers (who are driving even tougher bargains); a laid-off steel worker who can't find work.

Each are struggling, more or less, with an uncertain future. Whatever you call it, it's still a struggle.

Norman Hauser, mortgage broker

Hauser has been a mortgage broker for 11 years, starting with what he thought were slow times in the late 1990s through the frenetic mortgage market that ground to a halt earlier this year. His firm once had four employees and an office in downtown Crown Point. Hauser now works, alone, out of an office in the basement of his home.

"I'm getting by on investments and the house is paid for, and my wife is a nurse, part-time, so we have insurance. It's tough, but there are people in a lot worse shape than I am, with mortgages or kids.

"It's been over a year now that things have started slowing down, to where it is now, which is a trickle.

"When you're doing 15-12 loans a month, the days go by fast. I won't do 15 loans this year.

Now, I go out, make my rounds to see my Realtors, and there's nothing happening. I can't get any business.

"I think we all did do some sub-prime. We had to because our competitors were doing them, but I never liked them.

"It had a noble purpose, the changes to lending Clinton made: Get more people into homes.

"There are some people, they should never be in a house. They may never have lived in a house growing up. They don't know what it means to be a home owner, the expense involved.

"Sub-prime rates, interest-only, adjustable rates. These were all loans that were never designed for people to pay for 30 years.

"We'd tell them for two years you've got to not take on any other debt, pay down these credit cards, and come back in two years or three years.

"I can think of just one guy came in to refinance. I guess they either refinanced with someone else, or they missed a payment here or there, and lost the house in foreclosure.

"You look at the wholesale rate for loans now, you're talking about getting a mortgage at 5 (percent), 5.25 percent. I have got to believe a lot of people are going to want to refinance, and there's going to be some great deals on buying a home.

"If I was younger I would be very, very concerned. If you chose this profession, based on the way it was, that's at an end.

"I can close this shop up and forget it and sit in my recliner. But I want to work. I enjoy doing this. Retirement, unless you've got a whole hell of a lot of money, which I don't, it's not much to look forward to.

"It's a good occupation, it's a proud occupation. Mortgage brokers, we all have to go through a testing. We weeded out all the bad characters. We got out of the bad element out of the business."

Chris Moreno, car salesman

The walls of Moreno's office at Paul Heuring Ford in Hobart are lined with plaques honoring him as salesman of the year, a title he will win again in 2008 -- with the lowest total of his eight years as a salesman.

"It's slow now, but it's always slow this time of year. We're competing with Santa Claus, and that's one we lose every year.

"Every year, no matter what, I average more than 100 cars sold. I'm already past it now, but this will be the slowest year I've had since I?started.

"There are so many incentives out there now, but people always want more. My sales are pretty good this year, but my income will be way down.

"I had a guy come in and he points to that Ford Escape over there, a $22,000 car, and he says to me, "I'll give you $12,500 for it right now." I said we've got this we can do and that we can do to get you down a few thousand dollars, but we can't give you a car for half-price. He said, "Well, I saw Ford is almost bankrupt, so you better take what you can get."

"Then he walked out. I don't know where he went next. For two days, I had people coming in like that.

For a while, when gas was four bucks, we had people coming in wanting the Focus and the Fusion, the fuel-efficient cars, and we sold hardly any trucks.

"Now that gas is back under two dollars, I've got people coming in looking at trucks again. They figure, if you're going to be making a payment, why not get something you really want.

"The Ford F-Series trucks are the No. 1-selling truck for 32 years. They're going to be No. 1 again by the end of this year. People are always going to buy trucks.

"People are being cautious. There's so much uncertainty. How much will they be making this year, without all the overtime they're used to? Will they have a job?

"I try not to listen to what everyone is saying, because then maybe I'm not going to think I'm going to get that sale.

"I'm considering not going on a vacation this year, for the first time. But I like to be one step ahead.

If you sell cars, you're going to have a bad week. A bad month. Usually, if you keep at it, you catch up."

Shane Carver, steel worker

Carver, a married father of two, went from working 50-plus hours a week during summer 2008 to the unemployment line in October. On a snowy afternoon in December, he is cleaning up at his church in Dyer after his daughter's second birthday party. That morning, he interviewed for a job in Rensselaer, where the family moved from Hobart.

"I think it went well, but for what they're paying, I would lose money from what I get in unemployment, after you take out the gas to get there and childcare for my kids.

"If they hire me, I'll take it. But I'll probably be worse off than I?am even now.

"There's just nothing out there that even pays close to what I was getting, and even for that little money, the jobs are all filled up.

"I have put in I don't know how many applications since I lost my job. You have to to collect unemployment.

"I got my first job at 16. I've always worked. I've never been unemployed.

"I never knew what to think about people who couldn't find a job. I would move around, but I would always find something. I'll do anything.

"I used to work for Nalco in Gary, and I was driving in every day from Rensselaer. I was there just long enough that I missed keeping my health care benefits after I got laid off.

"My previous job paid a little better hourly, but getting a job in the union had better benefits, like insurance.

"We moved to Rensselaer because we had dogs and we wanted a little bigger place, and it was cheaper. When gas got to $4 a gallon, it was tough.

"Working overtime like I was, it got to be daddy was just a voice on the phone. Now I'm home, and my girl is a daddy's girl, and I'm grateful for that.

"My wife tried to find a job where we live, and there was nothing. She had a friend who was a manager at a store in Westfield (Southlake) Mall, so she took a seasonal job there.

"The mall isn't doing well this year. They do the schedule for workers on almost a daily basis, based on their sales, and they keep cutting my wife's hours. Sometimes she only gets five a week.

"The union said we might be back in February, so I was afraid to just take something. Now they're saying maybe June. We can make it the way we are until February, if nothing happens, but not June."