Home repair is a large and varied part of household spending in the United States. Census estimates for 2021–2023 counted 86.9 million homeowners, while 51.6 million—59%—made improvements during the period. The figures below put common repairs and renovations in context, including costs, do-it-yourself participation, older-home upkeep, and expectations for the years ahead.
Contents
- Home improvement activity
- What homeowners repair most often
- Typical project costs
- DIY and professional work
- Older homes and repair needs
- Household spending and future plans
- Remodeling market direction
Home improvement activity
The 2023 Census home improvements infographic reported $827 billion in homeowner improvement spending during 2021–2023. The median homeowner spent $6,500 on improvements. These are different measures: the total describes aggregate spending, while the median describes the midpoint among homeowners and is not an average.
Energy work was a substantial share of activity. A reported 14.7 million homeowners made energy-efficiency improvements, representing 28% of homeowners who made improvements. The Census figures also show that 32% of improving homeowners worked on a water heater, dishwasher, or garbage disposal project, while 25% worked on HVAC projects.
Project participation was also reported for flooring, paneling, or ceiling tile work: 21% of homeowners who made improvements worked on one of those projects. These shares describe participation among improving homeowners, so they should not be read as percentages of all homeowners.
The earlier 2021 Census home improvements infographic provides a useful historical comparison. During 2017–2019, 79.5 million homeowners spent $522 billion on home improvements, and 44.5 million homeowners—56%—made improvements. Median improvement spending was $4,400 during that survey period. The reported counts and spending totals come from different Census survey periods and are not a single-year trend line.
What homeowners repair most often
The Census categories show that repair decisions span essential systems, surfaces, security, and outdoor structures. Among homeowners who made improvements in 2021–2023, the largest supplied participation figures were 32% for water heaters, dishwashers, or garbage disposals; 25% for HVAC; and 21% for flooring, paneling, or ceiling tiles.
The same classification includes projects that can be urgent as well as planned. Fire-related disaster repairs affected 663,000 occupied housing units, while tornado or hurricane disaster repairs affected 129,000 occupied housing units. These counts describe occupied housing units affected by the specified disaster-repair categories, not the number of individual tasks completed.
Other repair categories in the Census data include plumbing fixtures, electrical wiring or fuse boxes, doors and windows, roofing, and attached garages or carports. Kitchen, bathroom, porch, deck, patio, terrace, driveway, and walkway work broaden the picture beyond emergency repairs. For homeowners planning a project list, this mix suggests that “home repair” can mean maintaining a system, replacing a component, improving a room, or restoring a structure after damage.
Typical project costs
The 2023 Census home improvements infographic reported the following median costs for selected projects in 2021–2023:
| Project type | Median cost |
|---|---|
| Security system | $400 |
| Water heater, dishwasher, or garbage disposal | $500 |
| Plumbing fixtures | $800 |
| Electrical wiring or fuse box | $1,000 |
| Doors and windows | $2,800 |
| Driveway or walkway | $2,900 |
| Flooring, paneling, or ceiling tiles | $3,000 |
| Attached garage or carport | $4,600 |
| Porch, deck, patio, or terrace | $4,800 |
| Bathroom remodel | $5,000 |
| HVAC | $5,500 |
| Kitchen remodel | $8,000 |
| Roofing | $10,000 |
Roofing had the highest listed median at $10,000, followed by kitchen remodeling at $8,000 and HVAC at $5,500. At the lower end, security systems had a $400 median, followed by water-heater, dishwasher, or garbage-disposal work at $500. The spread matters for planning: a routine component replacement and a roof project are both home repairs, but their typical budgets are very different.
The earlier 2017–2019 Census figures show that category medians can vary between survey periods. Kitchen remodels had a $6,000 median, attached garage or carport projects had a $3,404 median, driveways or walkways had a $2,160 median, and HVAC projects had a $4,000 median. Electrical wiring or fuse box work had a $750 median, plumbing fixtures $450, and water heater, dishwasher, or garbage disposal work $600. Porch, deck, patio, or terrace projects had a $3,000 median.
These historical figures should be treated as period-specific measurements. They are not guarantees of a current quote and do not establish that every category rose or fell between periods.
DIY and professional work
Do-it-yourself work represents a significant share of improvement activity, but professional work remains the larger share in the supplied Census figures. In 2021–2023, 36% of home improvement projects were DIY projects and 64% were done by professionals. Homeowners completed 50 million of 140 million home-improvement projects themselves or through their own effort mix during the survey period.
The 2017–2019 Census survey reported a similar balance: 37% of projects were DIY and 63% were done by professionals. The comparison is close, but the two survey periods should remain distinct rather than being treated as a precise change in behavior.
For a DIY guide, the category and cost data are most useful as boundaries. Lower-median projects such as security systems, plumbing fixtures, and some component replacements may be easier to budget in stages. Electrical, HVAC, roofing, and disaster-repair categories carry higher listed medians and were still frequently handled by professionals overall. The statistics do not state which tasks are safe or legal for a particular homeowner, so local requirements and the specifics of the work still determine the appropriate approach.
Older homes and repair needs
Age helps explain why maintenance and improvement needs differ between houses. The Census older home costs story reported that the median age of all owned homes was 41 years in 2021. Homes built before 1950 made up about 17% of owned homes that year.
Among owners of older homes, 61% started a home improvement project between 2019 and 2021. Those owners spent a median of $4,100 on all home-improvement projects during that period. Owners of homes built before 1950 spent a median of $1,800 per year on upkeep.
The measures cover different groups and time windows: one concerns older-home owners starting a project, one concerns all improvement spending during a period, and one concerns annual upkeep for owners of pre-1950 homes. They should not be combined into a single typical cost. For readers maintaining an older property, the figures do indicate that upkeep is a recurring budget category rather than only an occasional renovation expense.
Household spending and future plans
Angi’s 2024 State of Home Spending report found that 93% of homeowners planned to take on home projects in 2025. Routine maintenance accounted for 36% of planned 2025 projects, interior painting for 22%, and flooring installations for 13%. Looking farther ahead, 46% planned large-scale projects over the next five years; among those projects, 31% were kitchen remodels and 28% were bathroom upgrades.
At the same time, total spending on home projects fell 12% in 2024. Average home-project spending was $12,050, including average spending of $9,322 on home improvements, $1,750 on home maintenance, and $978 on emergency repairs. These averages are separate categories in the report and should not automatically be added together for an individual household.
Affordability and execution were common concerns. Angi reported that 61% of homeowners were concerned about affording maintenance or repairs in 2025, 54% struggled to find qualified professionals, and more than 50% encountered surprise expenses on completed projects. Forty-three percent said stress related to home repairs increased in the last year. Meanwhile, 67% preferred renovating their current homes rather than moving.
Spending varied by household group. Boomers averaged $14,140 in home spending in 2024, while millennials spent $2,316 on maintenance. Households earning more than $150,000 averaged $21,958 in home spending, up from $20,649 in 2023. Saving behavior also differed: 63% of homeowners ages 18–44 were actively saving for future projects, compared with 49% of homeowners ages 65 and older. One in four homeowners lived in multigenerational households.
Remodeling market direction
The National Association of Home Builders’ Q3 2024 Remodeling Market Index was 63, down from 65 in Q2 2024 and 66 in Q1 2024. The index had been 67 in Q4 2023, 65 in Q3 2023, 68 in Q2 2023, and 70 in Q1 2023. NAHB reported 231 responses for the Q3 2024 results.
| NAHB period | Remodeling Market Index |
|---|---|
| Q3 2024 | 63 |
| Q2 2024 | 65 |
| Q1 2024 | 66 |
| Q4 2023 | 67 |
| Q3 2023 | 65 |
| Q2 2023 | 68 |
| Q1 2023 | 70 |
| Q4 2022 | 69 |
The longer supplied series reached 77 in Q3 and Q2 2022, 83 in Q1 2022, 87 in Q4 and Q3 2021, 86 in Q2 2021, 83 in Q1 2021, 82 in Q4 2020, and 81 in Q3 2020. In Q3 2024, NAHB’s current market conditions index was 72 and its future market indicators index was 55. The corresponding Q2 values were 73 and 58, while Q1 values were 74 and 59.
Separate HIRI 2024 spending-survey figures show how expectations varied with concerns. Respondents most commonly identified personal finance concerns at 40%, macroeconomic concerns at 35%, and political and environmental concerns at 25%. Homeowners in those segments anticipated spending $5,147, $5,351, and $7,763 respectively on home improvement during November 2024–November 2025. Across respondents, 34% expected to spend more in the next 12 months, 43% about the same, and 24% less.
HIRI also reported more than $7,000 in anticipated 2024 improvement spending for locked-in homeowners, compared with just under $6,000 for homeowners likely to move. Twenty-four percent were locked into their current homes because they had mortgage rates below 3%. The report used 86 million owner-occupied housing units as the base for its moving-rate estimate; 7%, or about 6 million people, were likely to move only when rates dropped below 5%, while about 16 million would become likely to move once rates were between 3% and 4%.
These statistics frame home repair as both a practical need and a budgeting decision: project type influences cost, house age influences upkeep, DIY work covers a meaningful minority of projects, and expectations depend on household finances, housing plans, and the wider remodeling market.