As housing market cools, remodeling heats up

It's an interesting predicament.

The Wall Street Journal says a national reduction in housing starts means contractors are making themselves available for remodeling projects.

The Journal says that same reduction in housing starts means the demand for lumber isn't as high, which suggests remodeling materials costs should ameliorate.

Locally, remodelers say the biggest difference they're seeing is a greater availability of subcontractors and trades people.

"Because new home construction is down, a lot of the subcontractors that we work with, the mechanical, the trade subcontractors don't have as much on their plates so they're more readily available for us, and they're also willing to come in at a little less price than they normally would," said certified remodeler Mark Bonzel of Heritage Builders in Saint Louis Park.

His counterpart at Awad and Koontz agrees. But Ali Awad says the abundance of contractors may get the job done faster, but it hasn't had a big impact on remodel job bids yet, nor have moderating prices for dimension lumber and sheet goods like plywood.

"It's too early to tell whether prices are going down, but they have flattened out, and that's nice because prices have been increasing from year to year pretty significantly," said Awad.

The Minneapolis architect says the biggest influence on remodel jobs right now is the same as that which drives new home starts and existing home sales... interest rates. Higher rates mean less business... but, "When they go down a quarter of a point or so, as they have the last time interest rates changed, more people are willing to jump on board," said Awad.

For the time being though, remodeling companies are tickled at the possibility of more business coming their way.

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