Key Home Improvement Variances Among Secondary and Primary Homeowners in the U.S.

There are numer­ous char­ac­ter­is­tics among home­own­ers that can influ­ence how they approach home improve­ment projects and pur­chas­ing the nec­es­sary prod­ucts and sup­plies. We even can observe dif­fer­ences among sec­ondary and pri­ma­ry home­own­ers and their plan­ning strate­gies, project moti­va­tions, and deci­sion-mak­ing behaviors.For exam­ple, buoyed by life tran­si­tions and finan­cial con­fi­dence, sec­ondary home­own­ers show stronger intent to buy prod­ucts and to com­plete high-val­ue projects, accord­ing to our Sec­ondary Home Report. This is a con­trast to pri­ma­ry own­ers, who tend to pos­sess a more cost-focused, main­te­nance-dri­ven mind­set, and under­scores a clear sen­ti­ment gap across spend lev­els, moti­va­tions, and project types.Our report also high­lights dis­tinc­tions in the con­sumer sen­ti­ment lev­el of these two groups, as well as the type of research they do for prod­ucts and where they make their purchases.

Key Takeaways for Behaviors, Preferences, and Trends Among Secondary Homeowners

Sec­ondary home­own­ers — which includes own­ers of non-rental homes, short-term rental units, and long-term rental units — tend to be in a stronger finan­cial posi­tion, with access to a wider range of fund­ing sources. As a result, they are in a posi­tion to under­take more dis­cre­tionary home improve­ment projects.Here is a look at some of the oth­er key dif­fer­ences between these types of own­ers and their approach to home improve­ment:

1. Secondary Homeowners Report Less Severe Financial Concerns

Sec­ondary home­own­ers are sig­nif­i­cant­ly less wor­ried than pri­ma­ry own­ers about per­son­al finances, with it con­cern­ing only 26% of the sec­ondary own­er seg­ment, com­pared to 40% of pri­ma­ry own­ers. This dif­fer­ence in mind­set is evi­dent in vir­tu­al­ly every aspect of home improve­ment activ­i­ty. Sec­ondary home­own­ers plan more remod­el­ing and ren­o­va­tion projects—and high­er-val­ued ones — reflect­ing their over­all con­fi­dence and dis­cre­tionary ori­en­ta­tion. By com­par­i­son, pri­ma­ry own­ers plan for few­er big ren­o­va­tion projects, and are focused on upkeep and main­te­nance, along with poten­tial resale val­ue. For exam­ple, in 2024, about 81% of active improvers among pri­ma­ry home­own­ers did home main­te­nance, com­pared to 87% of sec­ondary home­own­ers. When it came to home ren­o­va­tions, such as updat­ing and remod­el­ing, 66% of sec­ondary home­own­ers had com­plet­ed such tasks over the past 90 days, com­pared to 43% of pri­ma­ry own­ers. The divide sig­nals two mar­kets: one expand­ing into high­er-val­ue seg­ments, the oth­er anchored in necessity.

2. Higher Spending is Expected by Secondary Homeowners in 2025

Because of low­er per­son­al finan­cial con­cerns, cou­pled with stronger income gains, reduced debt, and greater liq­uid­i­ty, sec­ondary home­own­ers — par­tic­u­lar­ly the own­ers of short-term rental units — are much more bull­ish on planned spend­ing when com­pared to U.S. pri­ma­ry own­ers. Our data shows they are twice as like­ly to plan increased home improve­ment spend­ing in the upcom­ing year, with 73% of short-term rental own­ers expect­ing to spend more than they did in the past 12 months. Mean­while, 22% of pri­ma­ry home­own­ers planned to spend less on home improve­ment in the next 12 months, com­pared to only 7% of sec­ondary homeowners.

3. Short-term Rental Owners are the Most Optimistic About Home Improvements

When look­ing ahead, short-term rental own­ers have expressed the great­est sense of opti­mism and con­fi­dence about tak­ing on home improve­ment activ­i­ties. They are the most like­ly seg­ment to believe it is a ​“good time” to start projects of all sizes and to hire a pro­fes­sion­al. Long-term rental and sec­ondary home­own­ers are about even in these areas, while pri­ma­ry home­own­ers are the most hes­i­tant at this time. Only a third feel it’s a good time to start a project under $5,000, and only a fifth think it’s a good time to hire a pro or start a project over $5,000.

4. Secondary Homeowners Make More Diverse Product Purchases

Sec­ondary home­own­ers not only engage in broad­er, upgrade-dri­ven projects with high­er spend, but they also tend to make more var­ied prod­uct pur­chas­es. Accord­ing to our data, they had made more pur­chas­es in near­ly every prod­uct cat­e­go­ry (except hard­ware and land­scap­ing mate­ri­als) than pri­ma­ry home­own­ers. This reflects their inten­tion to take on a broad­er scope of projects at any type of sec­ondary res­i­dence, whether it be a non-rental, short-term rental, or long-term rental. The prod­uct cat­e­gories with the high­est pur­chase rate among both groups include plumb­ing fix­tures and adhe­sives, sealants, and tapes. Qual­i­ty and price are the top fac­tors for both sec­ondary and pri­ma­ry home­own­ers when mak­ing home improve­ment prod­uct pur­chas­es, while ener­gy effi­cien­cy plays a stronger role for rental owners.

5. Primary Homeowners Rely Less on Professional Involvement

More than half of pri­ma­ry home­own­ers take a DIY approach to home improve­ment activ­i­ties, com­pared to about a third of sec­ondary home­own­ers. How­ev­er, the lat­ter are about twice as like­ly to use a com­bi­na­tion of DIY and pro­fes­sion­al assis­tance. In gen­er­al, about a third of sec­ondary home­own­ers — regard­less of the type of res­i­dence — hire a con­trac­tor for the whole project. The rea­son­ing for pur­su­ing DIY dif­fers a bit for both groups, as well. Sec­ondary home­own­ers are more moti­vat­ed by per­son­al enjoy­ment, while pri­ma­ry home­own­ers are focused more on cost and their own capa­bil­i­ty to com­plete the work.

6. Funding Sources for Home Improvement Vary Among Homeowner Type

While both sec­ondary and pri­ma­ry home­own­ers are most like­ly to use exist­ing cash/​savings to cov­er the costs of home improve­ment activ­i­ties, sec­ondary home­own­ers are slight­ly more reliant on cred­it cards. They also appear to be more finan­cial­ly com­plex, seek­ing a broad­er range of options to finance their projects. Addi­tion­al­ly, they are more than twice as like­ly as pri­ma­ry own­ers to lever­age equi­ty or use unse­cured financ­ing options, such as per­son­al loans from a bank or finance company. 

7. Big-Box Stores are the Top Channel for Both Homeowner Segments

Both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary home­own­ers fre­quent big-box stores for home improve­ment project pur­chas­es, with three-fourths of both groups using that chan­nel in the past three months, accord­ing to our report. Beyond that, how­ev­er, we see some dis­tinc­tions. Sec­ondary home­own­ers extend fur­ther into a wider vari­ety of chan­nels, includ­ing online-only retail­ers, spe­cial­ty sup­pli­ers, ware­house clubs, and direct-to man­u­fac­tur­er estab­lish­ments. When it comes to pur­chase meth­ods, they’re also more like­ly to buy online and have the prod­uct deliv­ered or pick it up in the store. Their behav­ior reveals a more delib­er­ate, omnichan­nel strat­e­gy shaped by con­ve­nience and greater flu­en­cy in sourc­ing options. Man­u­fac­tur­ers and sup­pli­ers might con­sid­er expand­ing their omnichan­nel capa­bil­i­ties to meet sec­ondary own­ers’ grow­ing demand for con­ve­nience, speed, and sourc­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty beyond tra­di­tion­al big-box format.

8. Distinguishing the Research Habits of Primary and Secondary Owners

Sec­ondary home­own­ers engage more deeply in research, lever­ag­ing a broad­er array of sources — in par­tic­u­lar, trend-for­ward social media and print media. Their approach is more explorato­ry, and they tend toward DIY tips, brand com­par­isons, and peer insights. This research behav­ior sig­nals a more con­sid­ered, con­sumer-mind­ed plan­ning style than the prag­mat­ic, task-focused, and price-sen­si­tive pri­ma­ry home­own­er seg­ment. In gen­er­al, both groups rely the most on local home improve­ment stores and search engines, retail­er web­sites, and rec­om­men­da­tions from friends, fam­i­ly, and col­leagues. Sec­ondary home­own­ers also report high­er use of near­ly all media chan­nels and plat­forms, from YouTube and Face­book to Insta­gram and Tik­Tok. Man­u­fac­tur­ers and sup­pli­ers can tar­get trend-dri­ven dig­i­tal and print chan­nels, with brand­ed, DIY-friend­ly con­tent to cap­ture sec­ondary homeowners.

Keeping a Pulse on Homeowner Attitudes and Trends

For more data and insights into sec­ondary home­own­er behav­iors and atti­tudes, down­load our Sec­ondary Homes Report. As a mem­ber of the Home Improve­ment Research Insti­tute (HIRI), you have a wide array of research at your fin­ger­tips to answer ques­tions about home improve­ment chan­nels, mar­kets, projects and prod­ucts and enable you to make informed deci­sions for your brand.