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How to Pay for Home Improvements Since Spending Has Soared
Homeowners are spending more and more on home improvement projects. Homeowners who tackled at least one house project last year spent about $9,500 on average on home improvements across 2023—a 12.5% jump compared with 2022, according to a report from home improvement platform Angi. Younger homeowners spent even more, with those ages 27 to 42 notching total improvement bills of nearly $700 more than the average. The jump is a combination of several things: First, more homeowners are looking to improve their homes rather than buying new ones. With mortgage rates well above 7% for much of 2023, existing homeowners—80% of whom have rates of 5% or less—just aren’t very…
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The Extreme Holiday Decorators Spending Thousands to Deck ‘Every Nook and Cranny’ of Their Homes
Jennifer Houghton clung to the banister in her Dallas mansion. Suspended about 10 feet off the ground, she braced her foot against the wall, extended her arm and placed an oversize pink-and-white ornament atop a spinning Christmas tree festooned with candied pink poinsettias. Below her, a life-size Nutcracker stood sentry in the double-height foyer, which Ms. Houghton, 54, had reimagined as the Land of Sweets, with pastel-colored candy covering the railing and plush ice-cream cones hanging from the chandelier. “Freaking amazing,” she said, satisfied with the finished product. In the kitchen, a candy-cane conveyor belt was perched on the counter. The front yard had been transformed into a Christmas tree farm with more than…
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The best credit cards and strategies for maximizing home improvement spending
Editor’s note: This is a recurring post, regularly updated with new information and offers. When it’s time to remodel or build a home, you’ll likely face significant costs. Readers routinely ask us what credit cards will maximize their rewards on purchases at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Ace Hardware and other home improvement stores. Today we’ll cover several strategies and credit cards you should consider when it comes to maximizing the return on your home improvement expenses. As you’ll see, many of the best cards for home improvement purchases don’t carry an annual fee and are useful for other types of purchases as well. Store cards typically aren’t good picks because they…
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Home improvement spending to soften over next year
Growth in home renovation spending is expected to soften next year as fewer property owners fix up their homes in preparation for sale, the latest report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University said. The study forecasts that year-over-year gains will slow to 10.1% by the end of the first half of 2023 from 15.9% for the just-ended second quarter and 17.4% by the end of this year. However, this year’s pace of growth was well ahead of what the JCHS expected last July as that Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity report predicted annual growth of 8.2% by the second quarter of 2022. “Slowing sales of existing…
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How Will Lowe’s Deal With Slowing Home Improvement Spending?
Lowe’s (LOW -2.33%) plans to report fiscal 2022 first-quarter earnings on May 18. The second-largest home improvement company in the world is expecting sales growth to moderate in the coming year. Lowe’s thrived as millions of homeowners took economic lockdowns as an opportunity for long overdue home-improvement projects. Understandably, sales would slow down after such a boost. After all, there are only so many rooms you can paint. The question on investors’ minds is: How will Lowe’s cope with moderating consumer spending? Image source: Getty Images. Profits are forecast to expand even with flat sales Fiscal year 2021, which ended on Jan. 28, was remarkable for Lowe’s. Sales increased by…
