Here's What You Missed at the 2024 HIRI Insights Summit

Home improve­ment research pro­fes­sion­als from across the indus­try con­verged this Sep­tem­ber at the Home Improve­ment Research Institute’s 2024 Home Improve­ment Insights Sum­mit, shar­ing valu­able per­spec­tives and the lat­est fore­casts on the indus­try. The event fea­tured speak­ers with extra­or­di­nary knowl­edge in a diverse range of sub­jects, each offer­ing unique insights into the ever-evolv­ing world of home improvement.

Let’s dive into the key take­aways from each speak­er at this year’s Sum­mit and explore how those take­aways can shape the 2025 go-to-mar­ket strate­gies of home improve­ment sup­pli­ers and manufacturers.

Soft Landing for the Fed, but Nice Runway for Housing Eric Lynch, Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Home Builders

Top Takeaways

• Inter­est rate cuts by the Fed­er­al Reserve will be wel­come relief for home­builders and, addi­tion­al­ly, will also help their fight to dri­ve down inflation.
• While home­buy­er demand remains strong, sup­ply-side fac­tors con­tin­ue to plague builders from increas­ing pro­duc­tion and reduc­ing the hous­ing deficit further.
• The home build­ing indus­try will have a good run­way through the end of the decade, but the future becomes murky afterward.

Not in Kansas Anymore: The Shifting Home Improvement Market 2025+  Todd Toma­lak, Zon­da

Top Takeaways

• Home Improve­ment spend­ing is soft­en­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly mid-2024, with Risks to Build­ing Prod­ucts are cul­mi­nat­ing now par­tic­u­lar­ly with large swings in DIY and PRO demand. We see more risk in ​‘mid-range’ remod­els than pre­vi­ous­ly forecast.
• The sto­ry of 2024 is ​‘defer­ral’, which is increas­ing­ly look­ing sim­i­lar to the deferral/​rebound path of the ear­ly 1980’s, but with far high­er home equi­ty, which changes the pace of growth. We con­tin­ue to refine our view tim­ing of long-term demand, and believe the 2026 – 30 equi­lib­ri­um is sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er than 2024 lev­els, but the exact tim­ing is dif­fi­cult to pin down.
• Change is under­way in dis­tri­b­u­tion. Con­cen­tra­tion of indus­try prof­its with­in a few out­stand­ing brands is plau­si­ble. Brand strength, pro con­trac­tor, and exe­cu­tion to dri­ve large dif­fer­ences in results 2025+

Core Drivers of Home Improvement Spending and Regional Variations Abbé Will, Har­vard’s Joint Cen­ter for Hous­ing Studies

Top Takeaways

• The share of home­own­ers mak­ing improve­ments on their homes remains sta­ble, at 1 in 3. It is good to see this sta­bil­i­ty year over year.
• There are more Baby Boomers spend­ing on home improve­ment, and spend­ing more, com­pared to when the Silent Gen­er­a­tion was the same age as Boomers are now.
• The aging pop­u­la­tion of home­own­ers is con­tribut­ing to the decline in the share of DIY activity.
• Home­own­ers earn­ing incomes in the top 5%, mean­ing $150,000+, con­sis­tent­ly account for rough­ly half of all remod­el­ing activ­i­ty despite changes in the busi­ness cycle and com­plete about 80% of projects with Pros.
• Own­ers with home val­ues that make up the top quin­tile reli­ably account for $2 out of $5 of home improve­ment spending.

From the Front Lines: The Pro’s Perspective Panel

Jen­nifer Cas­ten­son, Buildx­act
Bruce Case, Case Archi­tects & Remod­el­ers
David Pol­lard, Liv Companies

Top Takeaways

• Remod­el­ers are still strug­gling to get back to con­sis­ten­cy and under­stand what’s com­ing next
• Pros are seek­ing out expert rela­tion­ships with sup­pli­ers to know they are choos­ing the right prod­uct for the giv­en job and want to have access to tech­ni­cal sup­port options when they are on the job site. Pros val­ue man­u­fac­tur­ers and sup­pli­ers who make their jobs easier.
• Firms are ori­ent­ing projects more around use of spe­cial­ist Pros than gen­er­al­ist Pros
• Inter­per­son­al skills of employ­ees remain a chal­lenge faced by Pro businesses

Current Contractor Attitudes Impacting Decision Making Grant Farnsworth, The Farnsworth Group

Top Takeaways

• Home­own­er uncer­tain­ty and finan­cial deci­sions are impact­ing con­trac­tor behav­iors. This uncer­tain­ty means con­trac­tors and busi­ness must bring options and con­fi­dence to con­sumers that have a desire to do home improve­ment projects, but are hesitant.
• Pros will con­tin­ue to face bud­get pres­sure through­out next year, which is being impact­ed not only by home­own­ers, but labor and mate­r­i­al costs. Those brands that can sup­port con­trac­tors by address­ing their chal­lenges will win.
• Gain­ing and keep­ing loy­al cus­tomers will be key to growth in a com­pet­i­tive envi­ron­ment. Pro­mo­tions are an effec­tive way to get an already flu­id cus­tomer base to try your brand but should be ter­tiary to pro­vid­ing a strong val­ue proposition.

Cultivating Loyalty through the Power of Customer Data Leigh Wild­man, Lowe’s

Top Takeaways

• 79% of cus­tomers are a part of an aver­age 18 loy­al­ty pro­grams, but only active­ly engaged in 50% of loy­al­ty programs.
• Orga­ni­za­tions need to make efforts to iden­ti­fy, retain, and recap­ture switchers. 

Consumer Insights: Power Shift Sara Gut­ter­man, Green Builder Media

Top Takeaways

• There are dis­tinct gen­er­a­tional dif­fer­ences on sus­tain­abil­i­ty and hous­ing mar­ket trends. The key val­ues, sus­tain­able home upgrade pri­or­i­ties, and lifestyle pref­er­ences of Baby Boomer, Gen X, Mil­len­ni­al, and Gen Z homeowners/​buyers differ.
• In order to con­nect and build trust with mem­bers of each gen­er­a­tion through pur­pose-dri­ven mar­ket­ing, you need to align with how they are view­ing smart home adop­tion needs.

Consumer Demand for Energy Savings  Genevieve Beck­er, Thumbtack

Top Takeaways

• The ris­ing demand for ener­gy-effi­cient solu­tions, such as EV charg­ing and solar pan­els, presents sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties for pro­fes­sion­als and sup­pli­ers in the home improve­ment market.
• The wider adop­tion of ener­gy-effi­cient solu­tions is hin­dered by bar­ri­ers such as high upfront costs, lim­it­ed aware­ness, and sourc­ing chal­lenges. Address­ing these bar­ri­ers is cru­cial for mar­ket expansion.
• Col­lab­o­ra­tion and edu­ca­tion among sup­pli­ers, retail­ers, and pro­fes­sion­als are essen­tial to over­come these chal­lenges and unlock the full poten­tial of the ener­gy-effi­cient home improve­ment market.

How Smart Home Technology is Changing the Home Improvement Landscape Eliz­a­beth Parks, Parks Associates

Top Takeaways

• The ris­ing adop­tion of con­nect­ed health devices is prob­a­bly con­tribut­ing to the increased length of time the elder­ly stay­ing in their homes.
• In 2018, ear­ly adopters com­prised the major­i­ty of the mar­ket, but by 2023, the ear­ly major­i­ty are now the pri­ma­ry group of buyers. 
• Con­sumers don’t want a large num­ber of apps to have to man­age independently.
• Tech giants are mak­ing swift moves with­in this cat­e­go­ry because of the data, and they are each fight­ing to be the pri­ma­ry own­er and inte­gra­tor, estab­lish­ing their pre­ferred mode of inter­op­er­abil­i­ty across ecosys­tems. The ​‘Mat­ter’ Smart Home Stan­dard is one way the ecosys­tem is being built.

Stylish Trends to Timeless Designs: A Decade of Data on Home Remodeling with Houzz Liza Haus­man, Houzz

Top Takeaways

• 70% of exist­ing homes are old­er than 20 years; the medi­an age of a house in 40 years.
• Home­own­ers are ren­o­vat­ing for the long run pri­mar­i­ly, stat­ing intent to be in their home for 11 – 12 years. 
• Peo­ple are want­i­ng cozi­er feel­ing spaces with warmer col­ors, tones, and materials.
• The man­u­fac­tur­ing lag of build­ing prod­ucts does not real­ly allow for a ​“fast fash­ion” esc result of home­own­ers hav­ing greater access to research tools and design visualizers.

Trends Among Today’s Omnichannel Home Improvement Shoppers Josh Ban­field and Shea Brown­ing, Google

Top Takeaways

• Google and YouTube are among the lead­ing media chan­nels used to research home ser­vices, with 90% of researchers using Google, and 84% using YouTube.
• Most shop­ping is now inher­ent­ly Omni, 73% of pur­chas­es are either made online or influ­enced by online touchpoints.

How AI Will – and Won’t – Affect the Home Improvement Industry  Lynne Thom­son, Microsoft

Top Takeaways

• Robots: Labor con­tin­ues to be a prob­lem for con­trac­tors, but AI-enabled con­struc­tion work­ers are still a long way in the future.
• Vir­tu­al Spaces: Cus­tomer inde­ci­sion is a per­sis­tent prob­lem espe­cial­ly for small con­trac­tors. Sim­ple and afford­able 3D soft­ware for remod­el­ing will help Con­trac­tors get their cus­tomers to yes faster. Man­u­fac­tur­ers will like­ly need to help get the tools built and into the hands of small contractors.
• Omni-chan­nel retail­ing: Home improve­ment leads in omni-chan­nel retail­ing for pros. New avatars make it pos­si­ble to kin­dle a rela­tion­ship with tech savvy consumers/​DIYers.

The Home Improve­ment Research Insti­tute was thrilled with the wealth of knowl­edge shared at the 2024 Insights Sum­mit. We hope you found this sum­ma­ry — and, if you joined us in Chica­go, the event — valu­able as well. How will you lever­age this knowl­edge to craft tai­lored strate­gies that res­onate with chang­ing con­sumer pref­er­ences, mar­ket dynam­ics and the evolv­ing home improve­ment landscape?

To get access to ongo­ing home improve­ment research and receive a dis­count­ed rate for next year’s Insights Sum­mit, become a HIRI mem­ber today.