According to the 2021 Houzz & Home survey of more than 3,000 UK respondents, home renovation spend has grown 36% in the last year to a median £15,000. Higher budget projects (with the top 10% of project spend) reached £100,000 or more in 2020. Investment in kitchen projects, the most popular among renovating homeowners, jumped 15% to £11,500 in 2020 compared with £10,000 in 2019.
Two-thirds of homeowners made major changes to their kitchens, such as changing the layout of the kitchen and upgrading plumbing, electrical or heating (64% and 63%, respectively). Two in five homeowners reframed, moved or added walls, and increased the size of the kitchen during renovations (44% and 42%, respectively). More than half of homeowners replaced all appliances in their newly renovated kitchens (51%). Other improvements made to the kitchen include new wall colour or texture, worktops, lighting, cabinets and flooring (78%, 78%, 78%, 77%, and 77%, respectively).
With homeowners home-bound due to the pandemic, the share who reported that they had wanted to pursue a home renovation all along and finally had the time increased by five percentage points in 2020 (38% versus 33% in 2018), and remains the top renovation trigger. The study also found that the busy renovation market will continue through 2021, with 51% of homeowners planning to renovate this year, up five percentage points since 2019 (46%).
“While the pandemic caused initial concern for the residential renovation industry, many homeowners finally had the time and financial means to move forward with long awaited projects in the past year,” said Marine Sargsyan, Houzz senior economist. “This pent-up demand, along with longstanding market fundamentals empower homeowners to continue investing in their current homes.”
