According to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, homeowners continue to reduce spending on high-end home improvement projects. The Center’s Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) estimates homeowner improvement spending declining around 12%. The LIRA is released quarterly (April, July, October, and January) by the JCHS’ Remodeling Futures Program. The next release date is July 16, 2009.
“The weak housing market and the national economic recession continue to take their toll on remodeling,” said the director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies, Nicolas P. Retsinas in a press release. “It looks increasingly unlikely that this industry will recover until consumers have more confidence in the housing market.”
The LIRA measures and projects only a portion of the U.S. home improvement market, namely spending by homeowners on property improvements. Its projections do not include components of the broader market, including money spent on home maintenance or repairs, rental improvements, or rental and maintenance repairs.
View PDF of the 2009 First Quarter data
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