Chapter 230: The Beginning of a Big Outburst

Looking back at June 1980 after many years, Carter had only one evaluation: that was the beginning of a big outburst!

As time entered June, the first batch of over two hundred employees participating in the HT plan training also reached the end of their basic training. They officially embarked on the journey to a foreign land.

The cold storage wasn't ready? Rent someone else's for now; the factory building for the food processing plant wasn't completed yet, so let's start production in the existing workshops first! Produce while building!

As those two hundred people left Pearson, there were also one hundred workers who were about to move into the Tennessee food processing plant. With a total team of three hundred people, they began to disperse from Atlanta, heading towards their respective destinations.

Meanwhile, in Douglas-Pearson, over 1700 freshly trained construction workers wielded their tools and began preliminary preparations before the arrival of construction machinery.

As for the 65 trucks from the East Wind Express, they were now running almost continuously, with one truck assigned to two drivers, tirelessly transporting building materials and machinery around the clock.

A logistics company initially planned to be a supporting player unexpectedly generated exaggerated net revenue of over thirty thousand dollars in June alone. This profit was achieved even after deducting the high overtime and vehicle depreciation costs.

On the other hand, the 65 trucks from East Wind Express, along with some local trucks in Douglas, were unable to meet such a massive demand for transportation. External logistics companies rushed in, just like the building materials companies before them. The drivers and workers of these logistics companies needed food and drink while waiting for loading and unloading in Douglas-Pearson, once again boosting local tertiary consumption.

A benign positive economic cycle quietly emerged!

The citizens living here, in a daze, seemed to feel that the economic crisis had passed. The economy was recovering, and gazing at the colossal construction sites on the outskirts of the city, many elderly people almost had a climax, shouting out: they had once again entered the golden age of major construction projects!

The manifestation of demographic dividends also reflected in the supply of talents.

The bank security chief, John Hayes, a retired captain from the 35th Operations Squadron of the SOG Special Forces. Carter had never heard of this unit. He didn't know who gave him the courage to come for an interview with his nose in the air.

Then this guy single-handedly knocked out all the bank security personnel and more than twenty armed security personnel at the entrance, including six policemen. While Carter was exclaiming "John Rambo", he hastily appointed him as the bank security chief.

When Carter offered a high monthly salary of $1000, this guy was still complaining: "It's a pity it's not the jungle. It took me fifteen minutes to get old. If I were a little younger, if it were in the jungle, these rotten fish and shrimps would have been dealt with in over five minutes."

Except for security personnel, Carter also found a candidate who barely qualified in the industry. Similarly, a retired military officer from the Vietnam War, but he was a fat logistics officer, responsible for military supplies transportation. Although he wasn't a professional fleet manager, he barely matched the job requirements.

But in real estate, there were no suitable candidates for the time being. There were a few architects and designers, all busy in the new office rented by Pearson.

But behind the apparent prosperity, Carter's financial pressure was increasing.

The entire Douglas made a profit of over five million from land transactions, but he actually only made a little over one million. It was a recovery of the previous bad debts and a little extra profit from land.

This little over one million funds were taken away by Duke's furniture factory; meanwhile, in construction and real estate, although the initial start-up costs weren't high, as demand surged, the cost far exceeded Carter's expectations, and the initial investment reached five hundred thousand. At the same time, the apparent prosperity in the market also boosted the confidence of many people.

The HT special loans, which were originally expected to take some time to be distributed, were quickly disbursed. On the other hand, after planning was completed, even in the early stages of construction, the consumption of various building materials began to rise.

Inventory funds were gradually decreasing. With nearly $1.2 million in wages to be paid in half a month, Carter's pressure suddenly increased. Unlike Benjamin, who woke up laughing every day, Carter was almost waking up worried every day.

Because the current real estate development process in Douglas seemed somewhat off. First, in a normal real estate development process, the developer needed land. After obtaining the land, the developer would mortgage it to the bank and then start building. During the construction process, pre-sales would be opened simultaneously to achieve balanced cash flow.

Now the problem arose: the ownership of the land was not in the hands of DOG Real Estate but in the hands of those workers. The reason they could start construction on their land was that they all understood this was for building their own houses, so they signed land use agreements to grant permission.

With land ownership not in the hands of the real estate company, it was naturally impossible to mortgage the land for loans. Moreover, unlike in China, the real estate industry in 1980s America was not prosperous, at least not in small places like Douglas.

The urban housing construction in Douglas consists mostly of old buildings left over from the large development period of 1950. In the past twenty years, the only major project was the construction of Highway 23. At other times, there was hardly any demand for real estate development.

This environment has provided Carter's DOG Real Estate with an almost exclusive and favorable development environment, but it has also made financing loans particularly difficult! Even if the land is owned, it's not worth much, so getting a loan is challenging. Moreover, there are no peers who can provide some emergency funds.

Similarly, pre-sales have become troublesome. Because there are no precedents here, many people don't know what modern American neighborhoods and communities look like. In a situation where the land has already been granted to you for development use, asking people to pay before they've seen anything seems unrealistic.

How is that possible?! If pushed, they could simply refuse your planning and design and build their own small houses. It's not impossible!

In this situation, Carter can only grit his teeth and use his own funds to build a model neighborhood first. Then, using this as a blueprint, he can begin pre-sales.

However, establishing a neighborhood consumes funds at a staggering rate, which has truly broadened Carter's horizons. While truckloads of materials arrive in Douglas, Carter's cash flows out in a steady stream.

After calculating the remaining funds of around $5 million, even if he were to divert the operational funds from the credit card business, the total capital of $6 million, just the monthly wage expenditure of $1.2 million for two months amounts to $2.4 million.

Even if Carter believes that these people, for the sake of building their own homes, can expedite the process, aiming to catch up with the efficiency of the infrastructure fanatics, building the lower-level residential area in two months would still cost $2.4 million based solely on wages. The actual money left for Carter to purchase equipment and building materials is only $3.6 million.