Saturday, February 01, 2014

I wonder how much an average person spends on home improvements every year?

Thanks to some number crunching at HUD and the US Census Bureau, with some assistance from the National Association of Home Builders, we now have a good idea how much the average homeowner paid for improvements in the country's top five population zip codes last year.

According to NAHB and the HUD/Census stats, folks in the 94528 zip code in the San Francisco Bay area topped out the per-household home improvement payout at $5,653. At number five on the list is the 11765 zip in New York, where the per-household cost was $4,730 - putting the average at around 5,350.

While the high and low points of that price spread are not far apart, another breakout from the stats is very interesting.

The average home improvement in California's 94027 zip code saw 2,016 owner-occupied homes getting improvements costing an average of $4,752. While New York's 10004 zip saw only 435 projects - each totaling just a few dollars more per household at $4,766.

According to the NAHB, the estimates are based on a statistical model developed by NAHB, using data from the HUD/Census Bureau American Housing Survey.

That data relates remodeling expenditures to the number of owner-occupied homes in the corresponding zip code; the share of those homes built in the 1960s and 1970s; the average homeowners’ income; and the share of owners who are college educated.

The model is applied to data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, using geographic boundaries developed by the Census Bureau to capture zip code mailing addresses.

While the median level of spending on improvements is $1,400 per owner-occupied home, it can be as high as $5,000 in particular cases. In our next two segments, we'll take a look at those two price points, in relation to what you can get in a home improvement project - stay tuned.

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