Editor’s Note: My thoughts go out to all those affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. It has been both heart-wrenching to see what you are going through, and uplifting to witness the courage and generosity that is being expressed every day. The impact a Category 3 or 4 hurricane can have on your most valuable…
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Home shoppers around the country are frustrated. There aren’t enough homes for sale that meet their needs, and those that are available are often the subject of high price bidding wars. It’s no wonder that so many homeowners – Baby Boomers in particular — are finding it more sensible to stay in their current home…
Homeowners across the nation are not only spending more money on remodeling – they’re tackling much larger, more aesthetic and more expensive home improvement projects than five or six years ago. Instead of just replacing a faucet and handle, they’re upgrading the whole sink (…and what good is an updated sink if it’s next to…
The home improvement industry is big – and it’s only getting bigger. A doubling of the average homeowner’s equity in the past five years has stimulated steady growth, allowing home improvement spending to grow nearly twice as fast as the rest of retail. But how did it get to this point? And what’s in store…
June 27, 2017 Grilling is the hassle-free way to entertain. Minimal prep work, no messy pans to clean, plus you can keep the fire going throughout the day, as guests come and go. But planning a blowout barbecue can turn into a real pressure cooker, with all those mouths to feed. That’s especially true if…
May 16, 2017 New Lot Development is Not Keeping Up With Demand Builder confidence indicators show that home builders are extremely confident. That said, the pace of new construction fell in April (-2.6% versus March, and essentially flat versus a year ago). We see the overall pace of new home construction as still rising at a…
March 15, 2017 Home builders are feeling more confident than they have any time since the (2005) peak of the housing market. Builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes jumped six points to a level of 71 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). This is the highest…
Happiness is important to everyone, so HomeAdvisor decided to see just how much a person’s happiness is influenced by where they live. The first-ever survey of its kind, the poll is a comprehensive look at the things that make people happiest about their homes and their communities. After looking at the results, it’s clear that…
February 1, 2017 Credit: KBIS Record attendance at the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show (KBIS) in January illustrates the growth in this sector of the home improvement industry. I heard a lot of insightful discussions about the industry at KBIS, which inspired me to jot down some valuable nuggets and merge them with my own…
January 19, 2017 (Photo from Joint Center of Housing Studies) One of the indicators I like to watch is the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA), put out by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. The latest update is out now, and it incorporates new data from the Census Bureau (the American Housing Survey). …
January 3, 2017 The election of a new president can have both positive and negative effects on the economy — and on the home improvement industry in particular. There is a lot of uncertainty about what lies ahead no matter your ideology. Here’s a look at some possible scenarios. On the positive side, tax cuts…
