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The outlook for local homebuilders who weathered the storm during the recent downturn is more slow improvement.

New single-family home construction is up 14 percent in 2014 over last year, whereas new multifamily construction is up 31 percent, according to the Associated General Contractors of America.

Jim Chapman, president and general manager of Legend Homes, said the market for new home construction is 鈥渟till erratic, but has more confidence.鈥�

鈥淭wo years ago, if we said we had an increase of 100 percent in construction activity it sounded huge,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut it meant we built two homes that year instead of one like the year before.鈥�

Chapman said his company built 400 homes in 2006, but just 36 in 2010. This year Legend Homes is on track to finish 50 homes, he said.

Kevin Wann, owner of Pacific Lifestyle Homes, said his company’s sales volume currently is about 50 percent of what it was before the housing downturn.

Randy Sebastian, president of Renaissance Homes, said the company formerly had offices in Lake Oswego, Seattle and Bend. Following the housing downturn, Sebastian closed the Bend and Seattle offices and focused on building high-end single-family homes in the Lake Oswego and Portland areas.

At the height of the housing boom Renaissance Homes built upwards of 300 homes each year, Sebastian said. Now, the homebuilder constructs between 100 and 150 鈥渂outique鈥� homes in the Portland and Lake Oswego areas.

Sebastian said his company and the other builders who survived the recession did so by producing high-quality homes.

鈥淭here’s been a general upswing in the number of homes being built since the downturn,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut the home has to be the right home in the right location with the right price and the right amenities. It’s a finicky market and buyers won’t accept anything but the best.鈥�

Lenders are also finicky, Wann said, loaning money to only the most qualified homebuyers.

鈥淚t’s tougher today to get a loan than it was, and it should be,鈥� he said.

Chapman and Wann both said would-be first-time homeowners who didn’t qualify for mortgages in 2011 or 2012 when interest rates were at their lowest will likely be turned down by lenders today as well.

鈥淭he market for first-time homebuyers is the last market to come back, but it’s starting to get legs,鈥� Wann said.

Though new construction of single-family homes is increasing, Chapman said few local builders are able to make enough profit on them to participate. Instead, big companies 鈥� such as Lennar Homes, Polygon Northwest and D.R. Horton 鈥� are swooping up land and building at a lower profit margin.

鈥淭hey’re basically wasting the lots that are on the ground,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he rest of us can’t buy a whole lot of dirt, and even if we could, carrying the homes until they sold would be too expensive.鈥�