More tradespeople needed for P.E.I. home builders to expand

The sounds of air-powered nail guns ring out acrossCharlottetown as the home building construction season kicks into high gear.

Some Island companies get build orders and then work tomeet the area's growing demand.

"We have been hearing quite a bit that the used home market is getting fairly low, there is not a whole lot out there,"said Joel Leger, president of Premier Island Homes.

"We have had a lot of traffic with people that would typically prefer buying new and they are choosing the option to build just because of the lack of homes."

Leger said that demand in the areahas impacted his business.

"We've been increasing by about 40 percent year over year," Leger said.

The custom home builderstarted on the Island in 2013as a franchise of Canadian companySupreme Homes.

Challenged to find more workers

They currently have multiple home building projects on the go but have reached a working limit with the amount of jobs they can take on.

"It creates a lot of challenges for us, finding good carpenters at the moment is an issue," Leger said.

"We've done fairly well on hitting our deadlines, it typically means that myself and some of the key guys on the crew have to work extra-long weeks, sometimes up to 80 hours a week."

Leger said the news that the provincial government is considering a rebate would be helpful to get more people into a home. He said more workers would also help get more homes built.

"We would love to have more workersfrom Alberta coming back to P.E.I., carpenters are a huge priority," Leger said.

"If the government could get some sort of a [incentives]program ... for workers to come back, that would be great."

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