Report: Home improvement spending continues to increase – LBM Journal

This year, we found, in our annual survey, the average home services spending for households who took on projects rose to$13,138, an increase over last years survey results, where homeowners who did projects spent$9,081on average, saidMischa Fisher, chief economist at HomeAdvisor.

This years topline growth in spending and projects is a story of increasing costs of supplies, increasing cost of labor and homeowners shifting spending from things like entertainment and travel to their homes, continued Fisher. While the cost to do projects compared to last year did increase, we also found that homeowners were spending more as well. The acceleration of home buying this year and underlying drivers of consumer spending like shifting demographics, baby boomers renovating to age-in-place, millennials changing needs to raise their growing families, a greater cultural focus on home design and home entertainment, an aging housing stock and a shortage of new home construction among many other fundamental factorswere already resulting in more spending on home improvement, home maintenance, and home emergency repair and also continued this year.

Homes have always been important, but the once in a century global pandemic has fundamentally shifted the relationship we have with our homes. Those factors, combined with a shifting range of needs for households as a result of coping with COVID-19, such as 27% more outdoor living needs, 40% more home entertaining, 50% more working from home, and 68% more home cooking, resulted in a shift in spending patterns, with 33% shifting commuting budget, 48% shifting vacation budget, and 52% shifting restaurant budgets into home services.

Additional insights include:

This report also found many generational trends, fueled by the onset of the COVID pandemic, including a focus on home services by millennials.

Millennials are spending the most on home improvement projects this year, said Fisher. On average, millennial households spend or plan on spending nearly$10,000on home improvement projects this year. Homeownership rates for millennials have jumped significantly, especially as COVID-19 has reemphasized the importance of the home and many companies move to flexible work location options. Millennials are not only rapidly becoming homeowners, but they are also spending more on home improvement than any other generation when they do.

The report is informed byHomeAdvisors True Cost Guide, an online guide for homeowners to access real costs as reported by consumers for home projects, as well as results from an annual survey conducted among homeowners.

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Report: Home improvement spending continues to increase - LBM Journal