Sunny summer months bring out the urge to make changes for some local homeowners, including renovations and additions to their houses.
 
“Everything comes to fruition here in the middle of summer,” said Bobby Petelinkar, director of marketing for Ingram Bros. Inc., a Wilmington home repair and improvement business that is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year.
 
And it’s not just seasonal. A flurry of remodeling and renovating in the region is also a result of a tightening housing market, with some homeowners choosing to improve the homes they have rather than worrying about not finding a home in their price range and others buying homes with changes already in mind.
 
“They’re enhancing their lifestyle and finding a home and location that they like and then modifying it to their individual specifications,” Petelinkar said. “The home they may find might not have all the amenities that they’re looking for, but they know they can go ahead and add on to them, going with a reputable company like ours to go ahead and fulfill the dreams that they have.”
 
The number of single-family homes for sale fell nearly 11 percent in June compared to the same month last year in New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties, according to Cape Fear Realtors statistics. Because of that lack of inventory, along with rising prices – the median price of a single-family home in the tri-county region rose nearly 12 percent last month – and interest rates that are expected to creep up, the market has tightened to the extent that some homeowners might be deciding to stick to the fence instead of take advantage of the seller’s market, said Cameron Moore, executive officer of the Wilmington-Cape Fear Home Builders Association.
 
“They are seeing their overall home equity rise as well as their overall household income,” he said. “In these cases it may make more sense to stay put and reinvest into their home by adding on living space or amenity space like a pool, screened porch or sunroom.”
 
Moore added, “I think another driving factor to this equation is convenience and convenient access to neighborhood services like restaurants, shopping, movies, health care and schools all contribute in the homeowners’ decision to stay put and perhaps look at remodeling their house.”
 
Among recent popular items are sunrooms, decks, pergolas and other shade products, such as covers and awnings for porches, Petelinkar said.
 
Industry officials expect remodeling to remain on the upswing. According to a survey of more than 130,000 users of home design website Houzz, a home design website, half of the homeowners who responded plan to begin or continue renovations this year, with a median planned spending budget of $10,000.
 
Realtor Drew Pittman, of the Keith Beatty Team of Intracoastal Realty, is familiar not only with the ins and outs of the local housing market, but also the process of renovating a home.
 
Pittman recently had a sunroom/ living space added to his house off Wrightsville Avenue in Wilmington, work that wrapped up in December. A lack of labor is a factor in much of the construction industry right now, but can be especially challenging with some smaller home improvement or remodeling jobs, Pittman said.
 
“My framer ended up coming all the way down from Dunn, North Carolina, to do the job, and he did it in three days. But it took us a while to get on his schedule, and the cost was higher because he had to come from outside of town,” Pittman said of his sunroom.
 
Material costs are also on the rise, he said, even as demand increases for the type of work remodeling companies do.
 
“I think the remodeling business will be a tremendous business moving forward in the next few years because I think there’s a lot of money in it for the guys that are knowledgeable and know how to do it, but there’s not a lot of people who have experience and the knowledge in the market,” Pittman said. “They’re getting really busy.”
 
Despite the challenges of remodeling, potential homebuyers, particularly those who already own a home in the market, might be weighing their options more heavily because of the lack of inventory, Pittman said. They might be considering whether they want to give up the location they currently enjoy – or in some cases good financing terms with a low-interest rate – even if they might get a little more money for it than they would have a few years ago, he said.
 
Moore said some first-time homebuyers are choosing properties in existing neighborhoods where the housing stock may have been built in the 1980s or 1990s.
 
“Usually the homes are well-built and have good bones, but the new buyers want to personalize the house, and so many new homeowners are going in and updating the dominant living/gathering places like the kitchen, and bathrooms to create their own oasis,” Moore said. “At the very least the new buyers are going in and replacing roofs, windows, flooring, appliances, and tackling smaller renovation types of projects as well.”
 
Even homes that are newer than the 1990s can face scrutiny that a seller might not anticipate, Pittman said. A home that’s eight to 10 years old might have nice granite countertops and cabinets, but not necessarily in the style and color that homebuyers are wanting in 2018.
 
“We have a lot of clients, empty nesters, who bought or built in 2005 to 2008. They really haven’t done anything to the house or what they’ve done is minor, and then they see reports in the news that pricing is the same as in 2005 and they think, ‘Well, my house is worth what I paid for it in 2005,’ but it’s not an apples- to-apples comparison,” Pittman said.
 
In some cases, a home built in the 1980s that needs updating is easier for a buyer to stomach as far as a remodel goes, Pittman said “because they see the potential. They’re not paying [a potentially higher price] for updated features that they want to come in and change.