More Than $450B Spent on Home Improvement Projects

Nov 09, 2018

Builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes remained unchanged in March at 62, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI)

Nearly $450 billion was spent on roughly 113 home improvement projects between 2015 and 2017, according to a NerdWallet analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data from the American Housing Survey.

NerdWallet also reported that 72 percent of homeowners believed spending money on home improvements always increased the value of the property. However, roughly three in 10 homeowners did not money set aside for home repairs and improvements, with 56 percent homeowners admitted they would borrow money from a lender or family member to do finance the improvements; 33 percent stated they would borrow from their retirement fund for a major home repair or improvement.

As for the people doing the improvements, 80 percent of homeowners say professionals charged too much—this resulted in approximately 43 million home improvement projects between 2015 and 2017. For some projects, the do-it-yourself homeowners spent about $22,000 less than their counterparts who hired a professional. But do-it-yourself is not synonymous with do-it-correctly, as 43 percent of would-be home repair experts admitted messing up their project at least once.

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Phil Hall

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Nov 09, 2018

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