Contractor Market To Lead U.S. Home Improvement Spend

The Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI) says the current inflation bulge in the U.S. will continue to decelerate home improvement spend. Growth in the total U.S. home improvement products market is expected to decelerate from 7.2 per cent in 2022 to 1.5 per cent in 2023, with the consumer market growing by 0.6 per cent and the professional market growing by 3.6 per cent. Recent home improvement product market growth appears to have peaked in 2021 at 15.8 per cent, driven by surges in demand for home renovation during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, says a report from HIRI. “Today, rising prices on core personal consumption expenditures are eroding households’ real income growth and slowing consumer spending, including on home improvement projects. While wages across the nation are slowly increasing, they have not yet outpaced the impacts of inflation.” HIRI predicts that core prices will continue to rise, at least in the short term. “A softening in demand is expected to ease price pressures over the coming months and core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) prices are expected to decline slowly over the next year,” says the report.