Digital marketplace HomeAdvisor indicates that consumer spending on home improvement projects has increased by 17% since last year.
According to the company’s State of Home Spending Report, American homeowners are now spending more money on home improvements than home maintenance.
In fact, the report discovered that for every single dollar a homeowner ends up spending on a maintenance project, they put at least $5 toward a home improvement project.
In 2018 alone, homeowners spent an average of $1,105 on home maintenance projects. All in all, this reaches a median of 6.7 home maintenance projects a year.
“2018 was a robust year for overall consumer spending on home services, with average home improvement spending at $7,560, average home maintenance spending at $1,105, and average home emergency spending at $416 — for an overall total average spending of $9,081 across all categories,” HomeAdvisor writes.
And although HomeAdvisor attributes a majority of this to spending to improvement projects, the report reveals that home emergency projects are also a significant factor. This year, the average home emergency cost the typical homeowner about $416 a project.
Additionally, the report reveals that homeowners claim replacing or repairing damage, defects and decay as the number one reason for spending money on a home improvement project.
“The average home emergency spend is a relatively manageable $416; however, that is lowered significantly by the people fortunate enough to have no home emergencies,” HomeAdvisor writes. “Consumers who did have an emergency paid an average cost three times higher, at $1,206. This means that while there is a less than 50% chance a homeowner will suffer a home emergency in a given year, the average cost to address an emergency will be much greater for those who do.”
NOTE: HomeAdvisor’s State of Home Spending Report utilizes data from an online survey conducted by its internal research team. The survey was conducted across the country and details the results of 1,488 adult homeowners from April 9th to April 22nd, 2019.
