Trades are one of those areas (along with software engineering) where it is relatively easy to be your own boss. The market in general is pretty competitive on

Trades are one of those areas (along with software engineering) where it is relatively easy to be your own boss. The market in general is pretty competitive on both the buyer (lots of individual homeowners needing work done) and seller (lots of small independent contractors selling their labor) sides; that should make overall prices & wages reflect industry-wide (or at least local) supply & demand pretty well. ConstructionPhysics has a pretty good series about why the construction industry never really realized economies of scale the way most other industries do. Even when you have large homebuilders like D.R. Horton, their primary competitive advantage is usually reduced cost of capital, which goes away if capital becomes expensive for everyone. https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-there-so-few-economies-of https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-there-so-...