One Hull firm at least is reporting a silver lining from the recession.
Homes across Hull and East Yorkshire have been unlikely beneficiaries of the recession, according to glazing and conservatory specialists, the EYG Group.
While the housing market has in the main remained flat for the best part of two years, property owners have been busy spending what spare cash they have on repairs, improvements and extensions.
High on the list of home improvements has been garage conversions, with conservatories and new doors not far behind.
Frank Saunders, Marketing Director of Hull-based EYG, said: "As the recession began to bite into people's pockets, one of the first sectors to be affected was the housing market, especially the new build sector. It was difficult to predict what would happen to house prices and as a result many families decided to hold on to their existing home and simply improve or extend.
"This provided new opportunities for EYG in what was generally a challenging trading period. We launched our garage conversion service in January 2009 and a short time later we introduced a new range of glass reinforced products (GRP), including door canopies and surrounds, bow bay canopies and cantilever car ports.
The result has been that those homes that had become a little tired in places as the owners planned to move on and upgrade, have been given a much-needed recessionary makeover.
"There is also a growing trend among new home buyers to convert the modern style integral garage into an extra dining room, study or play room. It seems the majority of car owners leave their vehicles parked on the drive and not garaged so why not make the most of the extra space."
In 2009, EYG completed in excess of 50 garage conversions and sold around 700 conservatories, 780 roofline installations (fascias and soffits), more than 36,000 doors and windows and 78,000 double glazed units.