Home Remodeling: What Housing Crisis?

A Little Paint and Spackle Goes a Long Way

Have you noticed the check-out line is longer at the local hardware store? As the nation continues to face negative news surrounding the housing market; not all areas of the industry are impacted.  In fact, some seem to be growing. . .perhaps even thriving.

According to a recent National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) study , Kermit Baker, a senior research fellow at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and the project director of its Remodeling Futures Program, said that even with its recent decline, the remodeling market is shaping up at $300 billion annually.

With home prices still on the decline, and financing for those looking to move becoming more challenging, the new fiscally responsible alternative to moving is remodeling.  With this in mind, Colorado based company, RenovationReady, is filling a need to service this niche. With complete and customized programs for homebuyers, agents, asset managers, banks, and lenders, RenovationReady streamlines the lending and home remodeling process.

With distressed properties accounting for a significant portion of available housing inventory, RenovationReady inspects, qualifies, and certifies homes in need of repair. “Our goal is to allow home owners to benefit from the current distressed real estate market. We help our clients complete major remodeling projects with ease, at a time when the marketplace is clearly leaning toward remodeling over new construction,” says Jim Fraser, managing partner of RenovationReady.

 “Improvement and repair expenditures as a share of total residential investment climbed to 70% in 2009 and remained at roughly the same level in 2010 up dramatically from a low point of just below 40% in 2005 when home building was at its peak,” says Baker.  When far fewer people are building new homes, the research shows that renovation is on the upswing.

In the cloud of the current home construction market, the silver lining might just be the home remodeling market; where home buyers are currently able to remodel their dream house without having to build it from the ground up. Standing in line at the hardware store is a small cost in comparison to the significant return on investment when making the decision to remodel.