The Akron Legal News

Home improvement spending has skyrocketed; up 17.5 percent last year

BRANDON KLEIN
Special to the Legal News
Published: July 30, 2019

Consumer spending on home services was robust in 2018, according to HomeAdivsor's report.

Consumers spent an average of $9,081 on home improvement, maintenance and emergencies, according to the digital company's State of Home Spending Report.

"The spending patterns that characterize how we service and customize our homes represent a distinct and valuable area of the economy," said Mischa Fisher, HomeAdvisor's chief economist and report author, in a statement. "Our homes are typically our biggest purchases, our most valuable assets, and our largest source of savings. At the same time, homes are deeply intimate places in a non-economic sense."

Home improvement spending alone averaged at $7,560 per consumer. Such spending is up 17.5 percent over the last 12 months.

Ohio is among 13 states where spending is below average because of its low cost of living, according to the report. The top five states where home improvement spending was above average are Massachusetts, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Maryland, while the bottom five were West Virginia, Wyoming, New Mexico, South Dakota and Maine.

"The home services market is a dynamic economic engine that employs millions of service professionals in stable, well-paying jobs while delivering joy and satisfaction to tens of millions of consumers. This report helps us understand how this engine continues to develop and change based on the ongoing evolution of consumer tastes, sentiments and behaviors," Fisher said.

In addition, the report found that:

• Homeowners are spending more on home improvement projects than home maintenance projects;

• Room remodels have been the most popular home improvement project over the past year with bathrooms topping the list for the second year in a row over;

• Baby boomers and Generation X are motivated to modernize their homes while millennials and the silent generation are motivated to improve aesthetics and design.

"It makes sense that first time home buyers complete more home improvement projects and spend more money on home services," Fisher said. "Many of the millennials who bought a home in the last few years are seeking upgrades to increase the value of their homes and improve aesthetics. This focus on return on investment from millennials is likely due to a combination of typical youthful focus on wealth accumulation and their comparatively poorer financial situation driving a hunger to recover relative to their older cohorts."

The results of the study are based on annual survey of homeowners HomeAdvisor conducted.

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