Eye On Housing
NAHB recently released its latest projections of spending on improvements to owner-occupied housing by zip code. The projections show total spending on improvements, the number of owner-occupied homes, as well as average spending per improvement, in each of over 26,000 zip codes for calendar year 2017.
The estimates are based on a model relating improvement spending to five key variables: number of homes in the area, the share built in 1960s, share built in the 1970s, owners’ average income and level of education. Income and education, of course, tend to be correlated with each other. So it is interesting that, even after controlling for income, the model is able to tease out a separate effect showing that home owners with higher education tend to spend a bit more on home improvements.
In the average zip code, home owners who improve their homes in 2017 will spend $6,148 per remodeling project. As you would expect in a country as large as the U.S., there is considerable variation. Across the zip codes on the list, average spending per improvement ranges from under $2,300 to over $22,000.
At the top end, as indicated on the map, zip codes where home owners spend the most per improvement project tend to be concentrated in the high-cost areas on the coasts, especially in New York and California. However, Florida zip code 33109 (Fisher Island, just off the coast of Miami Beach) ranks third from the top in the entire country, with average spending per home improvement project of $21,124.
Some of the top zip codes in terms of dollars spent per remodeling project have relatively few owner-occupied homes. There are fewer than 250 owner-occupied homes on Fisher Island, for instance.
Among zip codes with at least 7,000 owner-occupied homes, the leaders are zip codes 10024 in New York, 77005 in Texas, and 90272 in California. Zip code 10024 (between Central Park and the Hudson River on the Upper West Side of Manhattan) has 10,180 home owners, with those who improve their homes spending an average of $17,234 per project. Zip code 77005 is in Houston and encompasses Rice University, as well as 7,442 home owners, with those who improve their homes spending an average of $17,155. Zip code 90272 (Pacific Palisades, a coastal neighborhood on the West Side of Los Angeles) has 7,326 home owners, with those who improve their homes spending an average of $16,935.
NAHB’s improvement spending projections for 2017 are based on a statistical model developed using data from the HUD/Census Bureau American Housing Survey and Census Bureau data for its approximation of zip-code area boundaries from the American Community Survey. The projections show the five drivers of remodeling, the number of improvement projects, average spending per improvement, and total spending on improvements, in each zip code area
The 2017 projections of home improvement spending in more than 26,000 zip codes spanning the entire country are available for sale on NAHB’s website with discounts for NAHB members and NAHB Remodelers members. Interested in remodeling? Learn more about joining NAHB Remodelers.”
NAHB also aggregated the projections to the state level, and these are shown below:
Fisher Island is as about as exclusive as you can get in South Florida.
Obviously even though the home improvement costs vary hugely in price, the actual value of the property itself surely reflects it even bigger? Like the difference between a place in Wyoming vs New York.