It has been found out that Americans are spending more money on home improvement, and there has been an increase of more than 17% since 2018. It appears that American homeowners are more interested in spending money on renovation rather than maintenance.
The reports have indicated that if a homeowner spends $1 on a maintenance project, $5 would be spent on a project related to home improvement, such as kitchen appliances, bathroom renovations, and other aesthetic improvements such as the installation of an electric fireplace (which has been shown to have a great impact on appearance of recent years). So going by this statistic, the homeowners spent about $1105 on home improvement as of 2018.
Whereas, for home improvement projects, the homeowners spent a whopping $7560, much higher than home improvement. Although the reports have shown a majority of the share went to the improvement projects, the same report also indicates that the homeowners spent about $416 on home emergency projects.
The housing market started with a slow kick off in 2019, where a drop of about 7% was noticed in the sales of new homes in January itself. It further dipped down for the second month of April, and some experts predict that it would remain stagnate for the later part of the year.
Despite the slowdown in the overall growth, a study conducted by some professionals has found that there hasn’t been a single city where remodeling has cast a negative impact. Home improvement is rising in many parts of America.
An aging population can lead to home improvements:
Homeowners who are above 55 years of age, appears to have dominated the home remodeling industry. They overtook the middle-aged homeowners so far as the spending on improvements is concerned. Such an increase is the direct result of those homeowners who are living longer.
They are willing to spend on home improvements that will allow them to remain safe in their present homes. Overall spending by the older homeowners almost grew above 150% over a few decades and raised to $117 billion, according to the study that was found.
In comparison to this, house owners under 35 years of age spend just 9% of the overall market spending. About 3 million homeowners have undertaken projects that would significantly improve the mobility of the disabled and the elderly.
A vast majority of homeowners, probably about 77% have said that they used cash from their savings for financing those home improvements. Around 5% of them have utilized their credit cards for such renovations.
It is also predicted that by 2035, around 78 million people will have attained the age of 65 years in America compared to the 76.7 million people under 18 years of age. It will be the first time in the history of the US where older people will outnumber the younger ones.
Hence, the aging population, along with the belief that most Americans will retire in the same house they were living since their working days, only ascertains the fact that more and more money will be spent on remodeling projects.
However, there is a strong connection between home improvement spending and rising home prices. Because homes are becoming more expensive, very few people tend to change their residence. The reports also say that there has been a decline in the national mobility rate, which has fallen by half over the last four decades.
