Home Improvement Spending to Reach $316B

According to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, Americans are expected to spend $316 billion on home improvement upgrades this year, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Because of this growth in home improvement spending, home improvement retailers have continued to see success, reports the Journal, as other retail sectors have seen sluggish sales and departing staff and have found alternative solutions to continue operations.

Americans spent about $296 billion last year on home improvements, which is nearly $75 billion more than they spent on renovations seven years ago during the housing crisis, according to the article.

Although home improvement spending is up this year, adjusting for inflation, the study found that prior to the housing crisis, American consumers spent about $334 billion in 2006 on renovations.

Upticks in housing costs have prompted more Americans to stay where they are and upgrade or choose homes that need more renovations.

“Two big demographic groups in particular, baby boomers and millennials, are driving the latest home-improvement craze,” the article says.

The Journal reports that baby boomers are staying in their homes longer because they are living longer, which drives the need for renovations, and millennials are choosing to buy older homes that need more renovations.

“There are two 900-pound gorillas,” HomeAdvisor chief economist Brad Hunter says in the article. The “baby boomer generation and the millennials are both having really dramatic impacts at the same time.”