Who Is Hiring Professional Contractors in 2021?

The results from the Home Improve­ment Research Institute’s (HIRI) lat­est quar­ter­ly Home Improve­ment Project Intent Track­ing Sur­vey, field­ed to approx­i­mate­ly 3,000 home­own­ers April 7 – 13, 2021, are in.

Accord­ing to respon­dents, home­own­ers are still plan­ning home improve­ment projects at high rates — a two-year trend with no signs of a slow­down. We know projects are being planned, but are peo­ple still opt­ing for pro­fes­sion­al help to com­plete those projects in 2021? What oth­er sur­vey find­ings shed light on home­own­ers’ cur­rent approach to home improve­ment projects?

Skill Lev­el and Project Knowl­edge Are Dri­ving Factors

Our sur­vey indi­cat­ed that home­own­er skill lev­el and project knowl­edge are the main dri­ving fac­tors in hir­ing a pro­fes­sion­al con­trac­tor. If the task is too com­pli­cat­ed, it’s time to call in the pros: Even if the home­own­er has the time and will­ing­ness to learn, these fac­tors are less impor­tant than their belief that a pro­fes­sion­al will com­plete the work better.

Oth­er Sur­vey Conclusions

The project intent track­ing sur­vey yield­ed addi­tion­al insights, including:

• More than 25% of respon­dents have nev­er hired a pro­fes­sion­al contractor.
• Com­plet­ed DIY project rates tend to hov­er above planned DIY project rates. This could indi­cate that many have the inten­tion to hire a pro­fes­sion­al, but some ulti­mate­ly do not, opt­ing instead for DIY or aban­don­ing a project alto­geth­er. How­ev­er, a major­i­ty of sur­vey respon­dents also agreed that projects meet dead­lines when a pro­fes­sion­al is involved.
• When a pro­fes­sion­al is hired, slight­ly old­er mil­len­ni­als and Gen­er­a­tion X home­own­ers are more like­ly to be involved in the project ver­sus oth­er gen­er­a­tions. Those between the ages of 18 and 29 tend to take a more hands-off approach, while project plan­ners 55 and old­er are not as hands-on as mil­len­ni­als and Gen X but are still involved.

Want com­plete access to results from the Home Improve­ment Project Intent Track­ing Sur­vey, includ­ing the impact of COVID-19 on pro­fes­sion­al hir­ing rates? Join HIRI for these and oth­er crit­i­cal home improve­ment indus­try insights.