Landscape of U.S. Remodeling

Between 2015 and 2017, American homeowners spent roughly $450 billion on remodeling projects, according to the Census Bureau. A new study tracks average costs and project types at the national and local levels.

During the two-year span studied, the national median home improvement project costs accounted for 1.8 percent of income, or $1,350, according to NerdWallet’s 2018 Home Improvement Report. Notably, the study also tracks median spending on remodeling projects with professional remodelers versus do-it-yourself home improvement projects. At the national level, homeowners who did the projects themselves saved an average $1,808. Overall, there were 113,000,000 projects in owner-occupied homes in the U.S., roughly 1.47 per home. The Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV metro had the highest in the study, 2,506,000 total projects, and 1.79 per owner-occupied home.

“With so many expenses to budget for, from car repairs to birthday gifts, it’s not easy to set aside money for home repairs and renovations,” NerdWallet home expert Holden Lewis notes. “But it feels great when you can pay for a new water heater or exterior paint job out of a home-repair fund. Or from an overall rainy-day account. If you don’t have enough savings to pay for a project, it’s perfectly fine to tap equity. My wish is that people don’t have to stress much about how to pay for the work around their home.”

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