Housing Rut Derails Host Of Dependents

Providers of Niche Services Face Their Own Struggles in Market Slump

As it soared, the region's housing market lifted the fortunes not just of home builders and real estate agents but also of those in less-obvious niches: termite inspectors, land surveyors and septic tank repairmen among them. Life was good for Terry Croson, who as a title abstractor scours courthouses for detailed land records that are needed to close a sale.

But Croson, who is single and raising her 6-year-old nephew, now finds herself living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to hold onto her home in Charles County. She said she made $30,000 abstracting last year, down from $47,000 in 2005.

"I've never seen it this bad," said Croson, 47, who has been in the business for 30 years.

The downturn in the housing market is rippling broadly across the region. Homeowners have suffered, but so have countless others who once served an economic engine running at full tilt.

"We're talking about hundreds of thousands of employees," said Anirban Basu, chief executive of Sage Policy Group, a prominent economic research company. "There's tremendous pain and uncertainty out there," he said, estimating that at least 10 percent of the region's economic activity is linked to residential real estate.

Arlington County plumber Johnny Lange said his business is down 20 to 25 percent because of sluggish home sales. Houses with septic tanks are often hooked into sewer lines as part of a sale, a job that can command $6,500 to $20,000, he said.

Radon Control Professionals Inc., a Reston firm, had 12 jobs in a recent week, compared with 30 in the same period last year, said James Humphryes, vice president. Humphryes said he might not be able to go much longer without laying off some of his small, specialized staff of five.

In Fairfax County, Mark Carlson, president of MBH Settlement Group, said his firm has shed 100 workers, mostly through layoffs, and is down to 100 employees in its 24 locations in Northern Virginia and Maryland. "You can't save the rest of them unless you do that," he said.

Sheryl Martin, owner of Quail Creek Baskets, has also taken a hit. Agents who once paid as much as $200 for gift baskets for clients are buying fewer, she said.

Compared with January of last year, housing sales were down 47 percent last month in Northern Virginia, 41 percent in Maryland and 38 percent in the District, according to Realtor groups.

Richard Clinch, a researcher at the University of Baltimore, said that from 2001 to 2005, as much as half of the job growth in metropolitan Washington was linked to the soaring real estate market. Many of those workers are "hidden" in jobs not widely thought of as linked to home sales, he said. The chain of workers involved in real estate deals has grown over the years, largely because of the money at stake.

Croson's job -- searching the land records as a subcontractor for Marlborough Abstract Inc., based in Prince George's County -- is an essential link. The firm generally works on behalf of settlement companies, determining whether properties are saddled with tax liens, estate issues, civil disputes or other problems.