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Why More People Are Performing DIY Home Renovations
Home renovations are daunting undertakings, wearing on people's patience and draining their wallets. But more and more U.S. consumers have realized the benefits of DIY to help with savings and are leveraging the power of social media to stoke the creative muse and summon the budgeting gods in one fell swoop. ...
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Home Depot's Strategy Nails Recovery
Home Depot still has a blueprint for beating Lowe's. That was abundantly evident in the companies' diverging earnings reports released recently.
Home Depot reported better-than-expected results as profit surged 18 percent over the year-earlier period, allowing the retailer to issue rosy statements about the housing recovery. Lowe's, meanwhile, posted a disappointingly small 2.5 percent profit gain and groused about how a colder-than-usual spring dampened returns for such things as hoses and gardening gloves. ...
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Improving Economy to Spark Home Renovations in Coming Months
Nearly Nine-in-Ten Homeowners Feel Spring is the Ideal Time to Make Home Improvements
With the housing market slowly bouncing back in many communities, homeowners are looking to make improvements to their properties. A new CouponCabin.com survey reveals that nearly one-third (32 percent) of U.S. homeowners feel the improving economy is motivating them to make home improvements that they wouldn't have done during the recession. ...
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Home Depot, Lowe's Prepare for Wave of Remodeling
Claudia Brown, a kitchen and bathroom designer for Home Depot Inc., is witnessing what she's rarely seen in the past six years: customers knocking down walls again.
"People aren't hesitant; they're getting what they want," Brown, who works in Greensboro, North Carolina, said earlier this month after selling a kitchen project costing more than $13,000 and a bathroom remodel for $3,700. ...
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Consumers Digging into Bigger Outdoor Projects
While spring is typically the busiest time of year for gardening and landscaping projects, experts are predicting a particularly abundant sales crop, powered by recovering real-estate sales.
Outdoor living spaces will be on the top of many lists, according to a trend forecast from the American Society of Landscape Architects, as will designs focused on sustainability and low-maintenance. ...
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Remodeling Rebounding Along with the Economy
If you've put off redoing that kitchen or adding a deck while waiting for the economy to perk up, welcome to the club.
Like the rest of the housing market, home improvements and remodeling plunged during the recession as consumers hunkered down.
But now that economic conditions are improving, the forecast for home fix-ups is looking up, too. ...
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Top 10 Home Design Trends? A Remodeler’s List
Portland, Ore.-based Neil Kelly Co., a design-build remodeling firm that has remodeled more than 30,000 homes, has announced its Top 10 interior design trends for 2013.
Twenty of the firm's design professionals shared their knowledge based on working with material suppliers and vendors came up with the following list: ...
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After the Storm, Some Start Shopping Again
As the effects of Hurricane Sandy subsided in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Tuesday, stores, restaurants and malls began to fill with consumers who were restocking their pantries, charging their mobile devices, even doing some early holiday shopping.
Retailers ranging from Ace Hardware to Nordstrom to Walmart slowly reopened in storm-hit areas. ...
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Home Improvement Category Continues to Shine
As the housing market climbs out of the cellar, home improvement sales are going through the roof.
Online purchases of home-related goods took priority over back-to-school-spending for families this summer, according to a study released last week from IBM Smarter Commerce.
It's a trend that's also driving sales in brick-and-mortar home improvement stores from mom-and-pop hardware shops to Home Depot. ...
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The Real Cost of Home Improvement
For a few years, carpets have been allowed to fray, faucets to drip and paint to peel. Now, home improvement spending may be rebounding. Harvard University's Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity suggests spending will rise 12.2 percent by early 2012. ...
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Customer Service Push Pays Off for Home Depot, Lowe's and Rivals
Flipping through door after door on display at her neighborhood Home Depot as if they were pages in a magazine, Debbie Megliorino envisioned her next home improvement project: a bedroom upgrade for her 1950s-era home in Burbank, Calif.
But for the 53-year-old postal clerk, the shopping excursion was a bit of a surprise. Instead of a frustrating amount of time finding "the guy in the orange vest" to help her, she got attention right away. ...
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Stores Bulk Up on Appliances
The housing market remains sluggish and many consumers still aren't splurging, but a growing number of retailers are trying to lure shoppers into stores with restaurant-grade stove tops and ruby-red washing machines.
Store chains are escalating their competition to sell appliances because many shoppers still prefer to buy the bulky products in person, making them somewhat immune from showrooming, the trend of consumers trying out merchandise in shops only to purchase it online. ...
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'Honey-Do' Lists Making a Comeback: Home Remodeling on the Rise
Is it time to unearth those long-lost plans for a gourmet kitchen remodel? More and more Americans are starting to think so, according to a recent report on remodeling trends.
After enduring gut-wrenching home price drops over the past few years, property values are beginning to inch up again, giving homeowners a confidence boost when it comes to the thought of pouring more money into their abodes. ...
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Home Depot, Lowe's Could See an Increase in Business
Spending on construction of new residential housing and improvements to existing homes is at a three-year high, a trend that may boost sales at Home Depot and Lowe's.
Private-residential fixed investment, which includes major replacements such as new roofs and improvements like finishing a basement, rose 9.1 percent from a year earlier to an annualized $360.7 billion for the three months ending March 31. ...
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Ace Hardware Repeats as Customer Satisfaction Leader Among Home Improvement Retailers
Ace Hardware ranks highest in customer satisfaction among home improvement retailers for a sixth consecutive year, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2012 U.S. Home Improvement Retailer Satisfaction Study.
Having a helpful and knowledgeable sales staff and making the shopping process easy are key drivers of customer satisfaction, according to the study, which measures customer satisfaction with home improvement retail stores based on performance in five factors. They are staff and service (including availability, courtesy, knowledge); store facility (including ease of finding merchandise and cleanliness); merchandise (including availability and product information); price; and sales and promotions. ...
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Homeowners Keep Renovations Simple, Budget-Friendly
Glitzy is out and comfy is in as Americans take a simpler approach to home renovation.
With real estate values still in the doldrums, people are seeing their houses less as investments and more as, well, homes. Since they're staying put, they're taking on targeted -- rather than extreme -- makeovers aimed at livability. ...
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Early Spring for Home Improvement Retailers
The spring selling season is like Christmas for home-improvement retailers, and this year, Christmas is coming early.
Government data show December and January were the warmest such months in the contiguous U.S. since 2006, creating the most inviting climate for home improvement since the onset of the recession. The mild winter sets the sector up for a key test of underlying demand. ...
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Home Remodelers Betting on a Rebound
Residential contractors are hoping that tight-fisted consumers will decide they need a new bathroom.
Or maybe it's time for those old kitchen counters to go.
Perhaps it would be better to add another bedroom than move?
After three years of slumping business, builders anticipate that the home remodeling and improvement sector will pick up in 2012. ...
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Homeowners Stop Waiting to Spruce Up
Americans are stepping up spending on home improvements for the first time in years, giving a small lift to the beleaguered construction sector.
Economists forecast that spending by homeowners and landlords on everything from minor sprucing up to full-scale remodeling rose modestly in 2011. That would mark the first year since 2006 that such spending increased. ...
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Lowe's Has Praise for the 'Creator' Customer
All home improvement customers are not created equal.
During Lowe's annual conference earlier this month, senior VP marketing and advertising Tom Lamb defined the company's target customer by first breaking down home improvement consumers into four distinct groups. ...
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Energy Tax Credits About to Expire
Tax credits for energy efficiency home improvements like insulation, replacement windows, and upgraded HVAC systems will end on Dec. 31, and Congress has not yet renewed them for 2012.
This warning from the Alliance to Save Energy gives homeowners less than a month to take advantage of as much as $500 in tax credits on their 2011 federal tax returns. ...
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Specialty Retailers, Hardware Stores Fueling the Home Improvement Category
According to The NPD Group, Inc., a leading market research company, the home improvement industry grew two percent in the 12 months ending September 2011 vs. 2010. However, the industry is still down seven percent compared to the same time period in 2009.
Despite the industry's slow growth overall this year and sales results still below what they were two years ago, specialty retailers, hardware stores and online shopping are making significant gains. ...
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Finding Growth in the Home Improvement Industry
An uncertain economy, low consumer confidence, suppressed home sales, and an increase in consumers deferring their home improvement purchases may make for a shaky future for the home improvement industry. However, according to The NPD Group, Inc., a leading market research company, there is hope for growth in the near future, but it lies in the hands of manufacturers and retailers. ...
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Q&A: Lowe's Campaign Targets New DIY Attitudes
Lowe's recently ditched its "Let's Build Something Together" marketing campaign in favor of "Never Stop Improving." In addition to new advertising, the effort also includes the launch of an online tool called MyLowe's, which it says will revolutionize the way consumers tackle DIY projects. Tom Lamb, SVP/ marketing and advertising for the Mooresville, N.C.-based retailer, explained the thinking behind the switch in an interview with Marketing Daily. ...
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Americans are Loving on Their Lawns
As home-improvement stores continue to wade through choppy economic waters, Americans are turning their DIY determination to lawn care and landscaping projects.
New research from Scarborough shows that 50 million homeowners -- or 29% -- are currently working on a landscaping project, making it the top DIY priority around the country. ...
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Shoppers' Satisfaction with Home Improvement Retailers Increases
Customers Rate Ace Hardware No. 1 For Fifth Straight Year in J.D. Power Study
Home improvement store shoppers are more satisfied with store facilities, merchandise and pricing in 2011, compared with 2010, according to the recently-released J.D. Power and Associates 2011 U.S. Home Improvement Retailer Satisfaction Study.
The study, now in its fifth year, measures customer satisfaction with home improvement retail stores based on performance in five factors (listed in order of importance): staff and service (including availability, courtesy, knowledge); store facility (including ease of finding merchandise and cleanliness); merchandise (including availability and product information); price; and sales and promotions. ...
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Fortunes of Home Improvement Chains Improve as Americans Tackle Repair Projects
After several years of perusing real estate listings and spending Sunday afternoons at open houses, Denise Majeski decided to stay put and fix up her 25-year-old Gurnee, Ill., home.
As the housing market languished even as the economy improved, Majeski determined the financially prudent course would be to fix up the house a little at a time, starting with replacing the windows and renovating the bathrooms. ...
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Home Improvement Still on Americans' To-Do Lists for 2011
Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of homeowners say they will invest in renovation projects this year, according to the latest American Express Spending & Saving Tracker.
While the number of people planning to make home improvements is similar to 2010 (62 percent), the amount they are planning to spend is significantly less -- dropping from an average of $6,200 in 2010 to $3,400 in 2011. ...
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Saunas: The Hottest Home Improvement Trend?
They are Gaining in Popularity, Based on Their Cost and Relative Practicality
Saunas today are hot. Even in Texas.
James Hall, a civil-engineering consultant, relishes evenings spent in his backyard sanctuary. He shuts the door and cranks up the heat to about 200 degrees.
"Afterward, you get a real calm feeling of well-being," he says. ...
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Remodeling Market Getting Fixed Up
A flood of foreclosed homes in need of fixing up is fueling a rebound in the remodeling business.
Like the rest of the housing business, home remodeling activity fell during the last few years. Now the residential improvement market is rallying -- and the millions of previously foreclosed homes that are changing hands are part of the reason. ...
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12 Top Remodeling Trends for 2011
It's a new year, with a new list of remodeling projects to start around the house. At least that's what remodelers and contractors are hoping.
So, what remodeling projects are on top of everyone’s list? ...
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