Americans have always enjoyed ‘do-it-yourself’ (DIY) home improvement projects, and the pandemic only emphasized this passion. This idea was supported in a recent survey by StorageCafe, a nationwide storage space search website and a part of Yardi, which analyzed approximately 3,300 responses to see what the most popular home improvement projects are these days, how much they cost and who’s more inclined to engage in remodeling, and other types of projects.
Here are the major findings from the survey:
- A third of Americans currently consider doing some sort of home improvement—22% have recently completed a remodeling project while 10% plan to engage in one.
- 52% of the Americans who completed home improvement projects in the past year did the work themselves, with Gen Xers the most likely to try DIY. 22% did some of the work, and only 27% used contractors for the entire project.
- Millennials and baby boomers are the most active generations in home improvement. About 23% of each generation said they did home improvement work on their homes recently, followed by Gen Xers.
- The average cost of a home improvement project in the U.S. stands at $22,000. However, residents of New Jersey, California and Massachusetts splurged the most on home improvement projects.
- Many seek to bring the indoors outside with outdoor spaces joining kitchen upgrades and bathroom remodeling as the most popular projects.
- About 47% of the Americans doing home remodeling list The Home Depot as their favorite home improvement store, followed by Lowe’s, which is preferred by 32% of the respondents.
The takeaway:
“We have had an amazing two years and at times it was hard to keep up with the work. Since March, we have noticed a major shift in the consumer being willing to pay the inflated prices that come with home improvement,” said Bryan Sebring, CGR, president and founder at Sebring Design Build and author of the report. “People are still wanting to remodel their house, but when they find out what the project may cost, they are very surprised and are choosing to wait. Typically, people fund projects with equity in their house or stock market gains. With interest rates doubling in the past year and the correction in the stock market, people are not in a good position to do these projects. Until the inflation rate goes down and the Fed U-turns in interest rate hikes, I see a slowdown continuing in the home improvement market.”
To read the full survey, visit: https://www.storagecafe.com/blog/home-improvement-in-the-us-relying-heavily-on-diy/.
