8 Top Trends in Homeowner Readiness To Spend on Home Improvement Projects in 2024

What Trends are Driving Homeowner Readiness in the Home Improvement Industry?

Infla­tion, ris­ing remod­el­ing costs, and stag­nat­ed incomes are influ­enc­ing home­own­er readi­ness with­in the home improve­ment indus­try in 2024, although not equal­ly across the board. Cer­tain demo­graph­ics remain inter­est­ed and eager to take on new projects, while oth­ers are more hes­i­tant or might choose small­er DIY projects instead of large-scale remod­els and renovations. 

Here is a look at some of the top trends that con­tin­ue to shape home­own­ers per­spec­tives on home improve­ment in 2024: 

1. Increasing Home Renovation Costs Lead to More DIY

Ren­o­va­tion and remod­el­ing costs remain high in 2024 as a result of steep prices for raw mate­ri­als, vari­a­tions in the labor mar­ket, and gen­er­al infla­tion. We’ve seen how this trend influ­ences the behav­iors and deci­sions made by homeowners. 

For small projects, home­own­ers sim­ply tend to use less expen­sive mate­ri­als. Look­ing for­ward, they plan to under­take more DIY projects — espe­cial­ly for those in the less-than-$5,000 range — and only uti­lize con­trac­tors for larg­er-scale projects. How­ev­er, despite a roll­back in numer­ous dis­cre­tionary cat­e­gories, home­own­ers still plan to spend about the same or more — rather than less — on home improve­ment, while depri­or­i­tiz­ing home goods and décor, going out to eat, enter­tain­ment, and vacations.

2. The Home Improvement Market is Slowly Increasing

The home improve­ment mar­ket expe­ri­enced a spike in growth in 2020 and 2021, and then sharply declined the fol­low­ing year. After a small drop of 1.5% in 2023, we are start­ing to see a lit­tle growth this year, accord­ing to HIRI’s Month­ly Eco­nom­ic and Indus­try Update from June 2024. That growth should con­tin­ue steadi­ly from 2025 to 2028, result­ing in a rough­ly $642.3 bil­lion home improve­ment prod­ucts mar­ket by the end of the fore­cast­ed peri­od. The pro­fes­sion­al mar­ket was hit hard­est in 2023, but is expect­ed to increase steadi­ly dur­ing the next cou­ple of years.

3. Household Income Drives Home Improvement Spending

House­hold income is one of the best indi­ca­tors of home improve­ment spend­ing. In the past few years, low­er- and mid­dle-income house­holds had dis­cre­tionary income and were able to secure financ­ing with low­er rates. How­ev­er, the mar­ket has dras­ti­cal­ly shift­ed in the past year and near­ly all home­own­ers are feel­ing the impacts of infla­tion. The new eco­nom­ic envi­ron­ment sees high­er inter­est rates for low- and mid­dle-income home­own­ers, who are simul­ta­ne­ous­ly expe­ri­enc­ing steady or wors­en­ing incomes, sav­ings account bal­ances, and dis­cre­tionary income.