Los Angeles (AP) – US housing owners spend more on home renovation projects, going back wider by consumers in the middle Less confidence in the economy.
Sales in building materials and garden supply retailers rose 0.8% last month of March, the largest earnings for 2022, and were up 3.2% from April last year. At the same time, US retail sales rose generally 0.1%, suddenly slowed from March.
The trend comes even as the prices for home improvement products are rising.
The cost of repairing and remodeling homes climbed nearly 4% in the first quarter of a year earlier, according to the Verisk remodeling index. The strategic data analytics company tracks costs for more than 10,000 home repair items, from tools to Windows.
Recent rises in prices appear to be driven primarily by labor costs and do not appear to reflect the continuous trade That Trump's administration is about major US trading partners such as Mexico, China and Canada.
“We have not seen a panic buying from contractors or investors who are worried about the impact that tariffs may have on future costs, or labor -driven labor rates driven by immigration policies,” Greg Pyne, Vice President of Verisk estimation property valuation, said in an earlier report this month.
Home depot He said on Tuesday he does not expect to raise prices due to tariffs, saying he has spent years diversifying the sources for the goods on his shelves. However, the Billy Bastek Executive said some products now on Home Depot Shelves could disappear.
He also noted that the chain sees fewer customers undertaking large home improvement jobs such as kitchen and bath remodeling, as high interest rates could be discouraged homeowners from borrowing money to fund such projects.
Spending on home renovation has remained resilient as high mortgage rates and skyrocketing homes prices have frozen many potential buyers. That is kept US home sales in fall, Limit the market for homeowners who want to sell.
Many homeowners also bought or refinanced their mortgage when the average home loan rate was 30 years below 3% or 4% during the first few years of the pandemic. That has made them reluctant to sell now, when the average rate hover near 7%.
In response, many homeowners have chosen to invest in the spruce of their home rather than selling and taking a mortgage with a higher sudden interest rate.
A shortfall in building new homes more than a decade when doing it has kept people living in older homes longer. Nearly half of the owners occupied by owners were built before 1980 and have a median age of 41, according to the analysis of census data by the National Home Builders Association. That stock of homes has helped to fire the need for repairs and improvements.