DIY Remains the Most Common Project Method for Homeowners

While some home­own­ers are DIY­ers, oth­ers pre­fer to hire a con­trac­tor for any major home improve­ment projects. How do the num­bers com­pare, and what fac­tors dri­ve home­own­ers’ deci­sions to tack­le the work or hire pro­fes­sion­al help? Luck­i­ly, HIRI has con­duct­ed var­i­ous sur­veys that can help answer these questions.

What we have found from our sur­veys, DIY remains the most com­mon project method, as 68% of respon­dents said they are com­plet­ing projects them­selves. Fur­ther­more, the deci­sion to take on a home improve­ment project over hir­ing a pro­fes­sion­al often depends on the over­all cost of hir­ing a pro, with 65% of respon­dents report­ing they chose the DIY route in order to save mon­ey. On the oth­er hand, pro­fes­sion­als are most often uti­lized when projects require either a spe­cif­ic skill set or are too large or com­pli­cat­ed to do on their own.

The fol­low­ing home improve­ment projects are often DIY:

• Landscape/​Garden (90% DIY)
• Inte­ri­or Paint­ing (85% DIY)
• Garage Improve­ment (81% DIY)

Mean­while, these projects are more like­ly to involve pro­fes­sion­al support:

• Roof Replace­ment (79% Pro)
• Sid­ing Replace­ment (47% Pro)
• Win­dow Replace­ment (37% Pro)

Project-doers report­ed that when uti­liz­ing a pro, price tends to increase, regard­less of the lev­el of the pro’s lev­el of involve­ment. This is prob­a­bly due to the cost of labor, which was report­ed as being high­er than expect­ed even when split­ting the project with a pro­fes­sion­al. Home­own­ers also indi­cat­ed that split­ting a project or pur­chas­ing the mate­ri­als them­selves does not save much money.

The most com­mon form of pay­ment among project plan­ners is pay­ing out of pock­et or using sav­ings. Respon­dents report­ed high­er lev­els of pro involve­ment when extra mon­ey is avail­able, for exam­ple, from a tax refund or insur­ance pro­ceeds.

To learn how home­own­ers iden­ti­fy con­trac­tors and for access to more DIY and pro­fes­sion­al project work insights, join HIRI today. All HIRI mem­bers receive exten­sive, up-to-date home improve­ment mar­ket data and week­ly reports. These assets can help busi­ness­es adapt to mar­ket trends and plan for future suc­cess.

Learn more about mem­ber­ship with HIRI and the ben­e­fits that our mem­bers receive.