Home renovators seeing a rebound

AUSTIN (KXAN) -  Austin's housing market has seen a slow recovery. According to  Metro-Study, there were just over 5800 new home starts in the area in 2010, a 10 percent drop from 2009.

Metro-Study is forecasting a small increase this year, but while the new home market remains down, people are finding ways to improve the homes they already have.

"I think there's a lot of pent up energy in the market, people seem to be encouraged about the outlook," said David Davison, the Austin President-Elect of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry. "We're really encouraged what we have to look forward to in 2011."

He says the area remodeling business was down shy of 20% over the last couple of years, but he's seeing signs things are rebounding. Folks packed the Austin Home and Garden Show, exploring their remodeling options.

"The option of building a new home versus remodeling what we have, that's probably what's influenced us more than anything," said LeDana Zaborozn, explaining it was more economical to remodel. "We have looked at all of our budget, reorganized, restructured."

Faith Andrews was looking for options for a new refrigerator and granite for her kitchen. She says a sense of an economic rebound helped push her along.

"It always helps, but you still have to give up something to do something you need to do," she said.