The Richmond area has been hit by the housing slump, but not as hard as other areas.

Housing starts here are down 46 percent from their peak in January 2006. In Northern Virginia, they have slid 62.4 percent from peaking in July 2005, according to Chmura Economics & Analytics in Richmond.

Competition is stiff and bids are competitive, local building contractors say. Out-of-town contractors are competing with local ones for work here, they say.

Some contractors say the housing slowdown is the worst they have experienced. They have cut costs and adjusted work hours.

Others are getting creative and looking for new ways to make a dollar.

Here's what they had to say about the housing market in the Richmond area and how the slowdown is affecting them:

Kip Glass, K.P. Glass Construction, a site contracting firm in Rockville

A lot of developers are choosing not to start new projects, so everyone is on hold, waiting to see what happens. Fortunately, we have a lot of work on backlog that we're finishing up. But we're cutting back on hours more than usual. We don't want to work ourselves out of work.

This is the time of year where we load up for the coming year. Now is when we usually do a lot of bidding. Richmond is considered a stable market, so we're getting competition from out-of-town contractors from Charlottesville and Northern Virginia.

The cost of jobs is going down significantly. Labor prices are down 10 percent to 15 percent.

Mike Hildebrand, James River Nursery in Ashland

Our clientele are homebuilders, so when they feel the pain, we feel the pain. We're right there with everybody else.

We also do a lot of commercial jobs and work with homeowners.

Sales have been affected 10 percent to 15 percent. We're not harvesting as many plants. We're very careful with our purchasing inventory.

We deal with a lot of seasonal workers -- 80 to 100 during our busy times in the spring and fall. We probably won't have as big a work force, but that is yet to be determined. We are being cautiously optimistic.

Ralph Costen, Costen Floors Inc. in Henrico County(Team leaders at Costen Floors voted to cut back on work schedules so no one would lose their jobs.)

I am tickled pink that our employees decided to make it a team effort. They will take turns taking time off during the next 10 weeks. Hopefully, we'll be busy enough then to go back to a regular schedule.

I was looking at laying off people, and it was killing me. It would have been our first layoff in the 60 years we've been in business.

The biggest piece of our business is hardwood flooring. What's been hurt is the builder side of our business, installing hardwood floors.

We are blessed to have increased sales in retail. Blessed to have a great commercial market. But builders have gone away.

We've lived through other downturns in 1974 and 1989 through 1992, where we managed manpower by working four days a week. People talked about 2000 being a tough year. That was a blip.

Eric Medlin, Cygnus Construction Co. in Chesterfield County(Medlin's business was focused on doing general and termite repair work in houses that had sold. He is expanding into additions and other types of work.)

I was booked over a month out. Now I'm lucky to have three days of solid work.

I used to bid on a project against two or three contractors. Now, there's five to 10 contractors bidding on the same project and we're fighting over crumbs.

Work has slowed down so much, we've diversified and started to do additions and renovations.

I've teamed up with my brother-in-law, a builder, on the additions. He's set up to do that. I've got a larger clientele, so it's easier for me to get the leads.

We're also looking into investment properties, foreclosures -- fixing them up and flipping them or renting them, whatever is advantageous. Jon Rathke, Artistic Stone Design in Chesterfield County, a granite and stone contractor for countertops and fireplaces

New houses are still being built out there, just not nearly as many. We've seen a significant increase in remodeling jobs.

People are doing kitchen renovations, changing cabinets and appliances or maybe just a quick face-lift with granite. But overall the business is down.

We've cut out all overtime and looked at every expense category. We're getting better prices on slabs of granite. If you can shave $25, $50 off a slab, that helps.

We're scheduling our trips so we don't use as much gas -- things you don't think about when you're too busy.

We've cut back on some employee benefits. We used to pay all the medical insurance; now employees contribute. (The company employs eight people.)

John Jennings, Home Pro of Richmond, a house inspection company

In my almost 19 years in the home inspection business, the fourth quarter was the slowest I have ever experienced. Work went from steady to a significant drop.

January is typically a slow month of the year. It was a normal slow this year, not abnormally slow, so that's a good sign. Contact Carol Hazard at (804) 775-8023 or chazard@timesdispatch.com.