Some home remodelers busy as builders remain idle

By Michelle E. Shaw

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

As some home builders across metro Atlanta sat idle this summer, many home remodelers were busier than ever.

Enlarge photo

Bob Andres, bandres@ajc.com Workers near completion on an eight-month renovation of a Cobb County home. Renovation companies are seeing more large jobs like this.

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The deteriorating housing market, and the credit crunch that started it all, left many homeowners who had wanted to trade up looking for a way to make their old spaces new.

Some remodelers have doubts, though, that their good fortune will hold up in these tough times.

Frank Wickstead said a tightening by banks on home renovation loans has meant a number of jobs have recently been put on hold for his company, WicksteadWorks of Decatur, some indefinitely.

Lately, home improvement loans have been easier to get than mortgages, which helped feed a renovation boom, Wickstead said. But now he’s hearing from his clients that things are changing.

“The banking crisis is really at our door,” he said. “I think we’re about to see what the builders have been seeing the past 18 months.”

Until now, the recession -- especially the tighter housing market -- hasn’t hurt remodelers as much as others in the building trades.

A combination of lower job quotes and the inability to move into a bigger, newer home, were factors in many homeowners’ decision-making process.

“We thought this would be a great time to have work done,” said Heidi Wade, who lives in Johns Creek.

The Wades had their kitchen remodeled, put new windows in the basement and had siding installed. They considered the work preventive maintenance.

“The things we did would make our home more attractive whenever we decide to sell,” Wade said. “There are so many homes out there on the market, nobody will pick yours if it needs a lot of work.”

Wickstead said those types of concerns meant “more calls for larger jobs” for his company.

“There were certainly a lot of people trying to figure out what their options were in terms of working within the space they had or just trying to improve their homes,” Wickstead said.

That’s not to say it has all been good for the remodeling industry during the housing downturn. It was around this time in 2009 when career remodelers found their industry inundated with former home builders who were out of work. The competition was not friendly, and remodelers asserted many builders were not trained or equipped to do the specialized work. Builders said they just wanted to feed their families and needed to do something since they weren’t building homes.

Once many of the builders fell by the wayside, remodelers got calls to finish jobs that others couldn’t or didn’t.

“Those weren’t fun jobs,” said Bill Magyar, president of Johns Creek-based Superior Remodeling of Georgia. “We redid the siding on a house for a lady that was installed upside down.”

Magyar and Wickstead said it is hard to put a number on how much their business has increased. Both say they’ve seen increased requests for finishing basements and adding on living space.

“We usually do two or three larger jobs a year,” Wickstead said. “We’d usually have bathrooms and kitchens, and maybe an add-on here and there. But this year we’ve done five or so.”

He’s just hoping it will keep up.

were factors in many homeowners’