Home Improvement Has Surged, Here's Why and Its Effects

Home improvement projects are at an all-time high, according to NPR. The chief economist at Porch.com, an online marketplace dedicated to connecting homeowners to contractors, says demand is like never before. The demand mainly comes from necessity. Homeowners now need areas to work, teach, and for children to play. In just the past three months, Porch.com tracked 330 million Google searches for home improvement work, a 50% increase compared to last year. Not only is necessity a factor, but with travel and public activity restrictions, many Americans find themselves with more money to spend elsewhere. Read more to see which projects are the most popular and how the uptick in projects has affected the industry.

The categories of home improvement surging the most, though, have to do with work outside the home — just outside of it, that is, primarily in the backyard. There has been an almost threefold increase in building decks, and the number of people putting up fences is up sharply as well, according to Anderson.

"Deck construction is up 275%," Anderson says, quoting increases from March to July of this year. "Hiring landscapers is at 238%. Fence construction installation is at 144%," Anderson says.

And a lot of the work going on in backyards slips under the radar of people like Anderson. Astoria Camille, for instance, is working on a scrappy project behind her mother's home in Kansas City's Troostwood neighborhood.

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