What housing crisis?

So I've got some work that needs to be done on Casa De Mad, my townhouse - I want to get gutter helmet knockoffs installed so I don't have to worry about cleaning out my gutters, and I have some siding damage that needs to be repaired. I emailed a large roofing and renovation company about it, and was told that there would be a 6 to 8 week wait just to get an estimate. Which sucks, because I was hoping to get it done during the summer, so I wouldn't have to take off from work during our busy fall season.

Now, I guess it's possible that the company was blowing me off because it was a small job. But even if that's the case, it suggests that they aren't hurting for work - that they aren't sitting around doing nothing, or they would be happy to get a small job. They must have plenty of large, profitable projects to do.

From news reports, we're supposed to be in something near the Great Depression, with everyone squirreling away money and refusing to spend it, and with nobody willing to put money into their houses that are now worthless. I'm guessing that's not really the case if there is that much of a backlog for getting home improvements done.

Part of this may be "nesting" - people are spending money on stuff for the home because they are going out less and spending more time at home. While Megan's article talks more about spending money on things for/in the home, like flat panel TV's (and I'm one of those people who is buying one), it may also extend to the home itself. It also may be that people who were going to sell their houses and move have realized that they can't afford to and are instead putting money into their current homes to make them more like what they want, since they will be in them a while.

Still, it suggests now may not be quite as bad a time to be a construction worker as one would think. And it suggests that maybe spending a bunch of money on infrastructure as stimulus might not have been as necessary as claimed.