Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Ellen Prillaman and her daughter Lyndsay look at samples Sunday at the Premiere Stone booth during the Home Expo at the Salem Civic Center. The Prillamans are looking to rebuild their home after losing most of its structure in a house fire.

Wendy and Mike McCarty look at tubs during the Home Expo at the Salem Civic Center. The McCartys have had their Salem home on the market are trying to find ways to make it sell. They were also looking for ideas for the house they hope to buy.

Visitors look at home remodeling booths Sunday during the Home Expo held at the Salem Civic Center.

The otherwise charming house features a bathroom in an avocado hue and a chocolate brown stove, colors embraced by many homeowners during the shag-rug '70s.

Mike and Wendy McCarty hope to buy and renovate the throwback place but must first sell their current home. So far, that's been a challenge. Like others with homes for sale, they're up against a slumping housing market, tightening credit and unprecedented turmoil affecting financial institutions.

The McCartys said only one person has looked at their Salem house in the past month.

"There is nobody out there looking," said Mike McCarty.

The couple and other homeowners wandered Sunday from booth to booth at the 13th annual Home Solutions Expo at the Salem Civic Center, inspecting replacement windows, kitchen cabinets, hot tubs, flooring, a new approach to controlling dampness in crawl spaces and a host of other goods and services.

Expo vendors described a variety of demand trends among consumers that the vendors attributed to an uncertain economy and rising energy costs.

"What I'm seeing is a lot more remodeling," said Randy Cochran of Crown Floors in Roanoke. "And people are doing it step by step, room by room, rather than doing it all at one time."

John King is president of both King's Hauling & Excavating and Specialized Saw & Mower on West Main Street in Roanoke County.

Demand for excavation and grading work has declined, King said, as new construction has slowed.

"You end up doing more marketing to overcome what's going on," he said.

But King said lawn equipment and landscaping sales are up and demand has increased for firewood, and all are sold by Specialized Saw & Mower. He said homeowners seem to be buying lawn and garden equipment instead of paying professionals to groom and landscape their yards.

Two couples attending the expo came because their homes had burned.

A fire in February 2007 consumed the Rockbridge County home of Chip and Judy Schram, a house they had previously remodeled. They lost everything in the early morning fire "except our bed slippers," Chip Schram said.

"We're looking at all the new and better things we can do when we rebuild," he said.

"We'd like to go as 'green' as we can," said Judy Schram.

Justin and Ellen Prillaman and their 3-year-old daughter Lyndsay attended the expo Sunday. A March fire destroyed most of their home in Blue Ridge, Ellen Prillaman said.

The previous owner had remodeled the home, but a fireplace and chimney flue had been improperly installed, she said.

The Prillamans plan to rebuild at the same site and attended the expo to harvest ideas, she said.

Ed Bok of Hardy and Patti Tyree of Salem said Tyree plans to sell her home in a couple of years and is interested, in the meantime, in making the house more energy efficient and otherwise "green." Both said they were surprised there were not more green vendors at the expo.

On Nov. 7 and 8, the Association of Energy Conservation Professionals will hold a Green Living and Energy Expo at the Roanoke Civic Center. For more information, go to www.aecp.org.

No one interviewed Sunday expressed concern about getting the financing they might need to remodel.

On Friday, Ellis Gutshall, president and chief executive officer of Valley Bank in Roanoke, said he does not believe community banks in the region are significantly tightening their standards for home equity loans, which many homeowners rely on to finance renovations.

"There might be a little more scrutiny on the debt-to-income ratio," Gutshall said.

And many banks that once loaned 75 percent or more of a home's appraised value are adopting a more conservative formula, he said.

Some consumers seem wary of increasing their debt in an uncertain economy and depressed real estate market, Gutshall added.

The U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported Sept. 17 that new home starts in the South fell 7.4 percent from July to August. The descent was steeper, at 42.1 percent, when compared with August 2007.

Nationally, from July to August, new home construction fell 6.2 percent. When compared with August 2007, the drop was 33.1 percent.

Numbers also slid for permits for future home construction in the South -- falling 9.9 percent from July to August and 31.4 percent from August 2007.