A growing number of homeowners in the U.S. are planning on renovating their homes in the coming six months, a new Realtor.com survey has found.
About 67 percent of the 1,500 respondents, who took the survey, said that they were planning on making some kind of improvement to their houses. Also, about 20 percent of the participants said they would list their homes by the end of the year.
Why?
About 32 percent of the people said they were renovating because they wanted to add new or unique aesthetics to the residence and 22 percent said they were renovating because they wanted to sell.
However, only 20 percent of the respondents said they planned to sell their homes in the next six months.
About 19 percent said that they recently purchased the residence, which, therefore, needed renovation and 11 percent said they were refurbishing to improve the value of their residence.
What?
The kitchen and the bathroom were renovation hotspots of a residence with 61 percent and 59 percent, respectively. A little over 30 percent of the respondents said they wanted to renovate the exteriors or the patio/backyard.
How much $?
In February, the U.S. Census Bureau revealed that Americans had spent about $130 billion on home renovations in 2013, a 3.1 percent increase from the spending in 2012.
Twenty two percent said they would spend $2001 to $5000 on the remake and only about 14 percent of them said they would go on to splurge more than $20,000 on the renovations.
"With 32% of consumers planning to spend money on improving the look and feel of their homes, buyers should think about purchasing homes that require renovations. By considering these kinds of homes, buyers open themselves up to more affordable options and the ability to renovate their homes to fit their specific needs and tastes," Barbara O'Connor, chief marketing officer of Move, Inc., operator of Realtor.com, explained in a statement.
In April, an indicator monitored by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of the Harvard University forecast a strong growth in remodeling activity in the United States. However, the report added that the pace of remodeling should start to slow down by the end of the year.
"The housing recovery has at least temporarily lost some of its momentum. And as a result, remodeling spending is expected to follow suit and see slower growth beginning later this year," Eric S. Belsky, managing director of the Joint Center, said in a statement.
Now that a large number of the American home owning population is planning to renovate, where is it getting its cues from? Reality shows?
