Eye On Housing
NAHB recently released its latest estimates of spending on improvements to owner-occupied housing by zip code. The estimates include the number of owner-occupied homes, the number of home owners spending on improvements, the average spending per improvement, and total spending on improvements in each zip code projected to occur over calendar year 2019. Also provided are 2019 estimates of the drivers of improvement spending shown below.
The estimates of improvement spending are based on a statistical model that uses the above factors to estimate simultaneously the number of owners who improve their homes and the amount spent per improvement:
NAHB estimated the relationship between the various drivers and remolding using data from the HUD/Census Bureau American Housing Survey and applied the results to Census Bureau data for its approximation of zip-code area boundaries from the American Community Survey.
The results show that, in the average zip code, owners who improve their homes in 2019 will spend $8,327 per improvement; but, as you would expect in a country as large as the U.S., there is considerable variation. As the map below shows, there are many zip code areas where spending per improved home is under $6,500, and many where it is over $11,000. Zip codes with high spending per improved home tend to cluster around large metro areas—especially in the Northeast. Ten of the top 11 zip codes, in terms of spending per improvement, are in New York State (with the 11th lying in New Jersey).
The 2019 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 in and NAHB Remodelers members. On the same site, the improvement spending projections also available for each of the nine Census Divisions one at a time. The price for an individual Census Division is less than a third the price for the comprehensive data set that covers the entire county. A report for a single Division is available for free to members of NAHB Remodelers.
Projections aggregated to the state level are available to everyone for free here.
Paul,
Your 4th paragraph states “As the map below shows, there are many zip code areas where spending per improved home is under $6,5000, and many where it is over $11,000”. You may want to correct the decimal point on the typo: “$6,5000”.
Thanks Curt. Fixed.
Hi Paul,
The data table of state level projections shows “With Improvements in 2018”. Should it be of 2019?
Hi Cristina,
You are completely correct. It should be 2019 instead of 2018.
That typo has now been corrected.
Thanks for catching it.
Thanks! 🙂