HIRI Continues to See Growth for Home Improvement Product Sales

Sept. 5, 2012
The Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI) has just released its September 2012 forecast for the size and trends in the home improvement market.

TAMPA, FLA. -- The Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI) has just released its September 2012 forecast for the size and trends in the home improvement market. The  forecast is for a growth of 4.9% in 2012 and 4.0% in 2013. This will bring the market size to $284.8 billion in 2013.

Based on the macroeconomic factors that are known to drive the industry, home improvement sales should outpace GDP growth. "Consumers are starting to get back closer to normal in their maintenance, repair and improvement of their homes," says Fred Miller, Managing Director of HIRI. "Some of the newest data on housing should help maintain the positive momentum the industry started experiencing last year."

The growth in purchases by contractors is expected to lag somewhat behind consumer purchases this year (3.9% vs. 5.3%). With improving housing turnover, the outlook for 2013 is the reverse with contractor sales expected to grow 4.4% vs. 3.9% for consumer sales.

As employment growth accelerates and housing markets improve in 2014, expectations are for stronger growth of home improvement sales averaging 5.9% in 2014-2015 with a slight deceleration in the following two years as the housing market cycle runs its course.

This new forecast has some revisions to history driven by new data released by the Census Bureau. Based on this new information, retail sales of Building Material Dealers had slower growth in 2010 and 2011. After incorporation of this new data, total home improvement product sales now show no growth in 2010 and a 3.1% increase in 2011 (down from growth rates of 2.3% and 3.8% previously estimated for these two years.)

These forecasts are developed twice a year for HIRI by IHS Global Insight. Included are a range of key macroeconomic factors that drive the market forecast. The full report includes details on consumer product sales by 21 merchandise product lines and individual forecasts for each of the 9 Census Divisions. History is included back to 1992 and estimates are provided out to 2017.

The Home Improvement Research Institute is a membership-based, independent, nonprofit organization of manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers and allied organizations in the home improvement industry. It is the leader in independent research on the industry. The membership of HIRI currently represents over 75 of the leading firms in the industry. Additional information is available at www.hiri.org.

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