The Economy and Houston House Cleaning Services

Over the past three months I have been researching the economic condition for Houston area house cleaning services. I contacted twenty different maid service companies participating in the online marketplace BidMyCleaning.com and asked them several questions detailing the economics of their businesses during these difficult economy times. In this article I will only highlight three questions asked and the responses to the questions. Every company that was surveyed has been in business for at least 1 year and has at least five employees.

The first question to be discussed was question number four of the survey that asked "how was the 2008 holiday season for your company?" 100% of the companies stated that the 2008 holiday season was down from 2007. 80% said the holiday season was down 20 to 25 percent from year-over-year. The other 20% said their 2008 holiday season was down 10 to 15 percent from 2007.

The second question to be discussed was question number six of the survey that asked "did your revenues in 2008 increase or decrease?" 60% of the companies stated that their 2008 revenues decreased from 2007. The percentage grows to 80% for companies that have been in business for three or more years. The companies that did grow their revenues had very little revenue in 2007 or grew at the smallest percentage year-over-year in their company’s history. No company surveyed grew more than 5% in 2008. The biggest percentage loss from the companies surveyed was 45% and that company is strongly considering closing their doors in the first quarter of 2009.

The third question to be discussed was question number seven of the survey that asked "do you expect your revenues to grow in 2009?" This question demonstrated a lot of optimism from most of the companies with 70% stating that they anticipate that their revenues will grow in 2009 over 2008. About half of the companies that believe their revenues will increase in 2009 expect their revenues to grow between 9 and 10 percent. The other half expects growth in the range of 4 to 8 percent.

The survey uncovered that the economy hit the Houston house cleaning services/companies hard in 2008 with more than half experiencing less revenues than 2007 and with all experiencing a poor 2008 holiday season. However, the survey also uncovered a great deal of optimism about 2009 with most companies anticipating revenue growth in 2009.

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