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MARQUETTE -- The president of the Michigan Association of Home Builders is in the U.P., researching homes and seeing how they compare to the rest of the state.

Michigan's home building economy has been slow to bounce back after the recession; that's according to the MAHB.

The association is here to see just how the U.P. is doing, and from the looks of it, things aren't so bad.

"I kind of expected you were even harder hit up here, but frankly, I've turned my mind to think that this is not hit as hard, and maybe you've been a little more stable up here, so maybe you didn't have the rise, so you're not having the fall," said President of the MAHB, Colin Herren.

The Upper Peninsula Association of Home Builders has seen an increase in people who want to build homes.

"We're seeing growing interest in homes and condominium purchases; traffic's up in the models. I think there's a growing return of consumer confidence," said the president of the Upper Peninsula Association of Home Builders.

One of the biggest reasons the association wants to see an increase in home building is to get more people employed. According to the MAHB, for every one home that is built, three jobs are created.

For the Northcreek Townhomes in Marquette, there are at least 25 people who will work on each building.

But, overall home building numbers are still down in the state.

"We need to build houses. Last year Michigan built around 8,000 houses. You do the math times three, and that's only 24,000 jobs. At our peak, we were building 30 to 40,000 homes per year. You do the math, that's a lot more; it's over 100,000 jobs," Herren adds.