Hey: from the south

I am newcomer to scrapping. I have been in property preservation for almost 4 years now. Evictions and the follow up, bringing the propert to convey conditon. The business has unexplainably slowed as of late whether its due to loan modification or maybe a start of a recovery in housing I am not sure. Due to the recent slow down money has been tight and I have learned ( scrappers get ready to cringe) how much money I have been dumping at the landfills. Only the last couple of weeks have I been seperating the debris and scrapping the metal. It has not been a fortune but it more than covers the landfill fees even consdiering the extra time it takes.
I have been doing alot of research on the web about the scrappiing business which eventually lead me to this sight. As with alot of my ventures in life my timing has never been good. Before i got into property preservation (after my 25 years in construction came to an end) there was tons of money to be made, but the last couple of years have had some serious cuts in what they pay for debris which is where the money is or claims jobs but I have never been set up in that. The industry is also very untrusting and you spend alot of time documenting everything you do with photos and forms. I take on the average 4 to 5 hundred pics a house. Now I am looking into scrapping and from what I have read and due to a slowing economy that brings scrap prices up along with the interest in scrap I may have bad timing once again. I do have the advantage of supply from the forcloseures but right now I don't have another until 2-22-2012.
In my years in business I have found that certain kind of folks are drawn to different professions and from what I have read in the threads so far I like what I hear , people willing to help each other suceed. Even though I am a newcomer I hope in the long run I can bring something to the table!

welcome to the forum fakehand, what part of the south are you from?

welcome and I did cringe when you said you threw away cash.

what you have found here is pretty much the cream of the crop as far as scrappers are concerned. un fortunately you cant judge the whole world of scrapping by this forum or its members. be very cautious when dealing with outsiders, you can get shredded like the metal you turn in very quickly. try to find those members of this forum close to you and deal with them when you can, outlaws and a holes are exposed here very quickly, and don,t stick around very long. welcome.

I'd agree with Olddude, the sole fact that the people on this forum are passionate enough about their line of work that they spend their off-time talking about it shows you that this forum includes passionate individuals. There are scrappers who are in it just for the money. I was in property preservation as well and I agree with you about the picture taking. You could spend 4 hours on a house and then 4 hours uploading the photos and documenting everything later. It really wasn't worth it for that reason however I still enjoyed grass cuts. A quick job usually.