Marquette builder and bank have each seen signs of improvement
MARQUETTE -- Home building permits in Michigan are expected to jump more than 35 percent over the next six months, compared to the same stretch of time last year, according to the Michigan Association of Home Builders. One Marquette builder is already seeing signs of improvement.
Over the past three decades, Sunrise Builders, Inc. has constructed more than 500 homes in the Marquette area. The company has seen the housing booms and the housing busts, and compared to this time last year, their business has doubled.
"We have probably three times the traffic in our model homes and looking at our lots and our subdivisions. And before the end of April this year, with a nice early start, we actually have three homes under construction right now," says LR Swadley, President of Sunrise Builders.
That's thanks in part to the $8,000 Federal tax credit for first-time home buyers. The deadline to apply for the incentive has come and gone--it was April 30--but it did its job. It got the ball rolling this construction season.
"We were very busy before the expiration. Now that it's expired, we still see some buyers in the market, which is a good sign. The real estate agents that I've talked to have said they're still working with plenty of buyers," says Mike Mattila, Mortgage Banker for River Valley Bank in Marquette.
And these aren't small, inexpensive homes being built. Swadley says his recent home construction has started around the $250,000 level and gone up from there.
"There's money out there. There's money for loans; we have lots of money to lend," Mattila said.
Some combination of the historically low interest rates, the rebounding economy, and the availability of bank loans have driven new building permits up by more than 90 percent statewide in the past year, and Swadley says that's a sign of good things to come here in the Upper Peninsula.
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