Stop the Stall: How Brands Can Inspire Homeowners to Act

2025 Sales Are Not Meeting Expectations, Despite Sound Economic Numbers

From 2015 to 2023, the home improve­ment indus­try expe­ri­enced tremen­dous growth as the medi­an project spend increased 29%, and the num­ber of home improve­ment projects in a giv­en year increased from 2.7 to 3.4 per home. How­ev­er, these trends didn’t con­tin­ue in 2024 as home­own­ers throt­tled back on home improve­ment spending.

HIRI Infographic: Change in Number of Completed Home Improvement Projects

After a chal­leng­ing 2024, 2025 was fore­cast­ed to be a stronger year in the home improve­ment sec­tor This year, how­ev­er, is not meet­ing expec­ta­tions, as the home­own­er seems to lack urgency, sit­ting on the side­lines – direct­ly impact­ing new home sales, exist­ing home sales, and remod­el­ing activity. 

Accord­ing to the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Home Builders, new home sales are down nation­al­ly 1.4% year to date through August. And accord­ing to the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Real­tors, exist­ing home sales in August are flat vs 2024, despite an 11.7% increase in inven­to­ry. Addi­tion­al­ly, remod­el­ing activ­i­ty for Q3 2025 is trend­ing near its low­est point since Q1 2020. 

These trends are some­what con­trary to the broad­er eco­nom­ic trends. Even with 30-year mort­gage rates hold­ing steady above 6%, the big­ger eco­nom­ic pic­ture remains fair­ly sol­id. U.S. GDP grew at an annu­al­ized rate of 3.8% in Q2 2025, unem­ploy­ment stayed low at 4.3% in August, and over the past year, wage growth has actu­al­ly out­paced infla­tion—all signs that the economy’s hold­ing its own despite high­er bor­row­ing costs.

Fielding Research to Identify What Motivates Homeowners to Engage

To bet­ter under­stand how to unlock pent-up home improve­ment spend­ing, Brun­ner field­ed a sur­vey of 900 US home­own­ers that were plan­ning or seri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing a home ren­o­va­tion or main­te­nance project with­in the next 12 months. Sur­vey respon­dents includ­ed a mix of gen­er­a­tions, house­hold income lev­els, races and eth­nic­i­ties, and polit­i­cal par­ties to cap­ture the diver­si­ty of US homeowners.

Results: Momentum Stalls for 1 in 5 Homeowners

The sur­vey showed that 21% of respon­dents are like­ly to delay their biggest project. Fur­ther­more, one in three respon­dents who were like­ly to delay their project also planned to scale back their project.

Inter­est­ing­ly, income lev­el, and polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion had lit­tle impact on whether home­own­ers chose to delay major projects, val­i­dat­ing the need for deep­er insights to under­stand why home­own­ers are delay­ing projects.

Tap Into Personal Motivations, Not Just External Market Conditions

One find­ing showed that while exter­nal fac­tors like the econ­o­my, tar­iffs, and inter­est rates play a role, per­son­al moti­va­tions are the pri­ma­ry dri­vers behind deci­sions to delay their biggest home projects. Fur­ther­more, when we ana­lyzed the rea­sons why peo­ple do not delay their project, per­son­al moti­va­tions were the dri­ving force to pro­ceed. Rather than focus­ing on exter­nal fac­tors such as tar­iffs to pro­mote urgency, brands should focus on inspir­ing home­own­ers at a per­son­al level.

For exam­ple, Yella­Wood, the lead­ing brand of pres­sure-treat­ed pine, con­nects with home­own­ers through its Five-Star Back­yard cam­paign. Rec­og­niz­ing the impor­tance of the back­yard to home­own­ers and that it’s the place in the home to con­nect with fam­i­ly and friends, and relax and enter­tain, Yella­Wood posi­tions itself as a part­ner in cre­at­ing their own ulti­mate back­yard. Through DIY resources and con­tent, the brand helps empow­er home­own­ers to have their own five-star back­yard and ele­vate both their back­yard and their lifestyle.

Join Us For HIRI’s Upcoming Webinar for a Deeper Understanding on How to Inspire Homeowners to Act

As 2025 con­tin­ues to thwart expec­ta­tions, one thing is clear: home­own­ers are still engaged, just more cau­tious. By devel­op­ing a deep­er under­stand­ing of what tru­ly moti­vates them, brands can unlock pow­er­ful strate­gies to re-engage stalled home­own­ers and dri­ve action. To explore the above strat­e­gy, and four addi­tion­al strate­gies in greater depth and with rel­e­vant exam­ples, please join us for HIRI’s upcom­ing webi­nar on Novem­ber 13th.