Bay Area home remodeling picks up as economy mends

In another sign of an improving economy, residential remodeling is picking up in the Bay Area after several lean years, helped along by homeowners who are deciding to fix up places they can't sell because of the housing crunch.

"There is an awakening," said Rick Evans of Bauman Builders in San Jose. Last year "was like a switch that flipped."

Fueling the upward trend is growing confidence in job stability and a booming tech stock market that helps pay for new kitchens, bathrooms and landscaping. Few homeowners are borrowing for the work, builders say.

"It's all cash, nobody's borrowing anything. It's savings or stock money," Evans said. He said his clients "are employed someplace in the tech sector --

The Bay Area and coastal cities up and down the state are having what is "among their better years in the last five," said Mike Winn of the California Building Industry Association.

Jennifer and Julien Schreyer are remodeling the kitchen of their Oakland home, paying cash from savings and investments for the job.

"The economy is getting a little bit more stable, we are feeling a little more secure, and the stock market is going up a little so we could sell some stock," said Jennifer Schreyer, a real estate agent whose husband works for Pixar. "The economy

The Schreyers have been waiting for the right time to redo the kitchen of the home they bought seven years ago.

"It was a little scary to take those steps to do something substantial," Jennifer Schreyer said, but a new kitchen was a lifestyle essential. "I love to cook; my husband is French; our two boys were born in Paris, and they love to cook."

Jim Tibbs of HDR Remodeling in Berkeley, which is doing the Schreyers' kitchen, said some of his clients are remodeling instead of moving up. "People seem to be staying in their homes longer, opting for improving the home they're already in as opposed to selling and taking on a heavier mortgage at a larger home," he said.

See more here:
Bay Area home remodeling picks up as economy mends