his name is howard miller, president of hartville hardware. how much of your sales have gone up?ely seen an uptick in new home sales. recently i walked through the developments in my area where i live, and ten new homes are being built right now. one of our builders sold three houses last week. we're definitely seeing an uptick in building of new homes. >> what does that mean in terms of your sales? >> well, over the last several years, a lot of our builders from the past before the downturn became remodelers. we saw an uptick in remodeling. now many of them were going back to building houses also. they're busy. we have a hard time finding people for our customers if they want to remodel for kitchens or bathrooms. they're all busy right now. >> howard, it's brian sullivan. sounds like you're saying you have a shortage of workers in northeast ohio. >> yes, we do. >> how do you fix that? >> well, many of the people have gotten out of the trade of the building trades, and i'm not sure exactly how that will all wash itself out. assuming as there's more demand, people will get back in