Spending on Home Improvement Up Marginally
| According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, Americans spent $168.7 billion on home improvements and repairs in 2006, 1.5 percent more than in 2005. From the comments of Joint Center officials last week, the increase was disappointing but understandable. The slumping for-sale market in many areas of the country has led many homeowners to delay or pass on major home-improvements, ending the double digit, quarter-to-quarter increases that the remodeling industry experienced over much of the last five years. |  |
The bulk of the demand for remodeling jobs continued to come from the baby boom generation, according to the NAHB research, which was conducted in conjunction with the quarterly surveying used to produce the NAHB’s Remodeling Market Index. However, work requests from 30- to 40-year-old members of Generation X are on the rise, and they are turning out to be bigger spenders than the generation preceding them, the NAHB data show. Rising energy prices last year appeared to have little impact on the demand for jobs related to improving residential energy efficiency, and a majority of remodelers were involved in making modifications for aging-in-place, although they said that most consumers aren’t familiar with the concept. My feeling is that the NAHB should hold a contest to come up with a better description than aging in place, which better describes how I feel when a late train makes me miss the start of an important meeting.
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