Housing Confidence Up, More Americans Renovating

This past week, both Home Depot, Inc., and Lowe’s reported high fourth quarter gains, with profits beating their own revenue projections as well as analysts’ estimates, according to a recent Bloomberg Business article.

With sales at both home ­improvement chains advancing over 7 percent, and more expensive purchases (ranging from 500 to 900 dollars) surging 10­13 percent, it would appear homeowners are back to building.

What does this mean for housing? With job and market confidence rising, homeowners are picking up renovation projects they may have been putting off in previous years, when the market was stalling and the economy low. A fourth quarter survey by the National Association of Home Builders showed the number of companies seeing increases in major projects and committed work for the next three months are at all-time highs.

While only time will tell for sure, these improvements could lead to more homes on the market this spring.