Spending nationwide for home improvements and repairs will rise 6.7% to reach $317 billion in 2017, according to the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) published by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. That increase nearly matches the 6.9% growth estimated for 2016.
“Although above-average growth is expected this year, we’ve lowered our projection for market size somewhat with the recent release of new benchmark data from the American Housing Survey,” Abbe Will, Research Analyst in the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center, said in a news release issued Jan. 19. “Spending in 2014 and 2015 was not quite as robust as our LIRA model estimated, growing 11.3% over these two years compared to 14.3% as estimated.”
The LIRA is designed to project the annual rate of change in spending for the current quarter and subsequent four quarters, and is intended to help identify future turning points in the business cycle of the home improvement and repair industry, JCHS says. It used to cover only remodeling expenditures over $500 but now counts repair work as well.