NAHB recently released new county estimates of remodeling in owner-occupied homes to members of NAHB Remodelers.  The estimates are based on a model developed by NAHB using the American Housing Survey (HUD/U.S. Census Bureau) with county-level inputs from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.  The inputs are based on data collected from 2006 to 2010, so the resulting estimates are for remodeling by home owners during a typical year in that period.  The county estimates are summarized in the map below:

The darkest areas on the map show counties where estimated remodeling is  at least $4,000 per owner occupied home.  At the very top of the list, however, there are a number of counties above $6,000:

The table also shows the four inputs NAHB uses to estimate local remodeling tendencies.  The input with the strongest influence on remodeling per home is the home’s value, so the highest remodeling per home estimates tend to occur in counties where home prices are high—in large metropolitan areas on the Northeast and West coasts, or in resort areas such as ski destinations around the Rocky Mountains. 

Some of the counties with high remodeling per home contain relatively few homes, so it’s also useful to look at total remodeling within the county.  The counties that rise to the top of that list are the ones with very large populations, such as Los Angeles County, or Cook County in Illinois (which includes Chicago).

An NAHB web page shows the top five counties in each of the four principal Census regions for total remodeling and remodeling per owner occupied home.   Remodeling estimates for all counties in the country are available to members of NAHB Remodelers.

Tags: county, county estimates, economics, home building, housing, remodeling, remodeling by county