Remodeling: The New Black?

Couple Remodeling

Remodeling has become more popular over the past 2 years than ever before, but why is that?

We all know that the economy is still feeling under the weather, and the housing market has been in intensive care for some time. When things get tough, people get creative, and no more so than when it comes to where you live and how you live there. According to the BuildFax Remodeling Index, home remodeling increased for the 22nd consecutive month this August, showing that people are spending their pennies on making what they already have a little bit better.


You may not know this, but Emmer isn’t just about building homes; we do remodeling, too. So when we saw this huge rise in remodeling, we had to ask ourselves: What actually spurs people remodel? After some research, compiling and opinion scouring, we came to four main reasons that inspire people to remodel:


1)      Resale:  It is most certainly a buyer’s market out there. If you’re trying to sell your home, nowadays it isn’t uncommon to put into play the old “spend money to make money” principle. Sprucing up parts of your home to make it more eligible for the current market, or even putting in add-ons that make it a little bit better ranking, can actually improve your chances of selling.

2)      Repair: Sometimes, things break. Kitchen cabinets, bathtubs and garage doors- all these things deteriorate after time, and depending on how well they’ve been treated, they can fall apart even faster. So, remodeling the kitchen or bathroom can sometimes be justified simply because it doesn’t work right anymore.

3)      Renovate: A little more aesthetic than something that’s broken, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t just as annoying. Cracked pink floor tile? Appliances from the 1970’s? Visual frustrations like that can really put a damper on a homeowner’s opinion of their home. It’s very common for a home to be remodeled to update the style, increase size or simply re-establish function. A tiny kitchen may have been fine for a couple when they started, but now that they have four kids, maybe a bigger oven is necessary.

4)      Re-Appreciation: Okay, so that isn’t actually a word, but we think you get the picture. In this day and age, not everyone can get a new home that’s exactly what they want. If people are having a hard time moving into their perfect place, sometimes they take that money and make where they are a little bit more like the dream. It’s hard to admit, but the current circumstances make it more apparent that we need to appreciate what we have and do with what we’ve got.

So, as the market has changed, people have changed, and the term “housing market” encompasses more than just building. If you’re in the Gainesville area and thinking of remodeling, let us know; we may not be building the place you call home from scratch, but we can certainly make your home your dream home.


We’d love to hear about your stories of remodeling! Why did you choose to remodel? Did you have other reasons than the ones we listed? Let us know in the comments below!  

Solar Panels: Fighting Fire with Fire!

Solar Panels of Stoneridge ApartmentsIf you’re like us and are currently at the mercy of Gainesville’s weathermen, then we’re sure you were as excited as we were to hear that today’s temperature is reaching a blistering high of 97 by mid-afternoon. These scorching temperatures mean pumping more and more AC into your homes and paying higher and higher electric bills to keep the heat at bay.

But some places are using the heat to fight the heat, in every sense of the word. A trend in solar panels, specifically in residential homes, has been growing at an average rate of 51% annually for the last 5 years, according to the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.

We’ve all heard about it and how using renewable energy can save the ice caps and our polar bear friends that dwell there, but few of us know how it actually works or why it’s so much better. Most of us live “on the grid,” which is just a scary-sounding term simply meaning we run off the power lines and energy source serving most of the country. But this energy comes from burning coal and oil, which is polluting the air by releasing harmful gases. Not to mention, once we use up all these resources, they’re gone forever. Then what?

Solar panels absorb sunlight and convert those energy particles into a direct current. Through an inverter, this current can be changed into alternating current, which is how we power our homes. This energy is clean, renewable, and best of all, can reverse how much electricity we use, taking your bills farther and farther down to nothing. (For a more technical explanation, check this out!)

There are a ton of other perks to having solar energy. Though it can be pricey to install, the New York Times recently reported that homeowners who install solar power have an increased premium on their homes, which just about equals the original expense. Nowadays, you can even build your own solar panels (check out this great video on how to make it yourself!).

Even we here at Emmer have begun harnessing the sun. In 2009, EDC had solar panels installed on 28 buildings in our Stoneridge Apartment complex, making it the first existing student apartment in Gainesville to convert to solar energy, and the total wattage amounts to 750kW (see photo above)! It’s the largest solar panel complex in the city, and one of the largest in the state. This cuts down on our electric usage in the club house, the fitness room, the staff offices, and even the laundry facilities.

So next time you get sweated out of your own home, maybe it’s time to consider a “sunnier” alternative.

Have you ever considered installing solar panels or using solar energy? Let us know in the comments below!