Housing, Painting and Remodeling are Booming as Boomers Settle In

Originally published in ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/07/2007 
By Repps Hudson 
 

With the housing bubble popped, credit tighter and baby boomers getting up in years, home remodelers find themselves with more than enough work to keep busy.

"When people aren't able to move, they start remodeling," said John Shea, of Callier Thompson Shea Construction & Design in Manchester.

Shea ticked off a list of reasons that he's seeing the local remodeling business doing quite well, despite the slump in sales of new houses.

There are fewer places for new houses short of the outer suburbs such as Wentzville, he said, which means more homeowners are choosing to live closer to work and shopping centers. And more residents, especially those empty-nesters with kids who have finished college, are deciding to stay right where they are.

Inner-ring suburbs like Maplewood, Richmond Heights, Clayton and University City have many older houses, some dating back nearly a century, that are ripe for remodeling, said Shea, KTRS radio's Mr. Fix It.

Moreover, those cities are doing a better job of holding onto their residents by providing better services. Even MetroLink, in Shea's mind, gets credit for helping residents to decide to stay where they are.

This trend, sometimes called "aging in place" in the home-remodeling business, means more homeowners, especially those in their 60s and late 50s, are starting to change the interior of their houses so they can get around more easily, with fewer steps to climb and wider doors to accommodate wheelchairs.

"They're opening up their kitchens and making them into family rooms for entertaining," Shea said. "They're putting in main-level master suites" so they don't have to climb stairs if they become ill.

Scott Mosby of Mosby Building Arts Ltd. in Kirkwood concurred that aging baby boomers are driving the remodeling boom in the St. Louis area. They may be empty-nesters, but they don't want to leave the nest where they have reared a family and may have sentimental attachments.

"My take on it is that baby boomers are facing their situation, whether it's adding a family room for holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving or just taking care of the house and doing it right," said Mosby, who is the host of a show on KMOX about remodeling.

One company that's benefiting from homeowners' reluctance to move to smaller digs is Bill Hurs­ton's residential and commercial painting company, a Franchise of CertaPro Painters, a national company in Oaks, Pa., that plans to open several more operations in the St. Louis area.

Greg Meyer, Hurston's general manager, said 90 percent of the company's work is residential, and most of that work is in older houses in high-income cities like Frontenac, Town and Country, Ladue and Clayton.

Most of Hurston's clients are dressing up their houses, not for sale but to make them more enjoyable in their twilight years. Customers may take care to choose the exact paint color they want, and they expect the work to be finished well, Meyer said.

He even makes a point of learning all the specific demands of the customers, so he can instruct his two- and four-person crews.

"If the homeowner tells me not to let a rose bush be damaged, I keep that on file and make sure the crew knows," Meyer said.

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