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After a flat couple of years, paints and other home-improvement products are poised to record real growth, according to a new market report.
Home-improvement products will represent a $284.8 billion industry in 2013, according to the latest forecast by the Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI).
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Rob Thomas/Wikimedia Commons |
| The overall market for home-improvement product sales is expected to grow by 4.9% this year and 4.0% in 2013. |
Overall, product sales are expected to grow by 4.9% in 2012 and by 4.0% in 2013, with the consumer market slightly outpacing the contractor market.
“Consumers are starting to get back closer to normal in their maintenance, repair and improvement of their homes,” says Fred Miller, managing director of HIRI. “Some of the newest data on housing should help maintain the positive momentum the industry started experiencing last year.”
Home Improvement Research
HIRI is a membership association of more than 75 manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers and allied organizations in the home improvement industry. The organization is a leader in independent research on the industry.
The group includes AkzoNobel, Sherwin-Williams, Benjamin Moore, PPG Industries, Valspar Corp. and a variety of other manufacturers (Wagner Spray Tech, ITW, DuPont and others) that provide products, equipment and services to the paint and coatings industry.
The group was founded in 1981 as the Do-It-Yourself Research Institute but renamed in 1989 to expand its scope to include the professional remodeler segment.
Consumer vs. Contractor
For 2012, consumer market sales are expected to increase by 5.3%, with professional market sales lagging at 3.9% in growth, HIRI reported.
However, with improving housing turnover, the outlook for 2013 is the reverse, HIRI reports. Contractor sales are expected to grow 4.4% vs. 3.9% for consumer sales.
HIRI noted that the retail data indicated a very strong first quarter of 2012 for consumers.
“While Consumer market sales were likely boosted by unseasonably warm weather, some of this growth may be due to sales of building materials suppliers to new home builders that we are as yet unable to filter out of our home improvement products estimates,” according to the group.
Looking Ahead and Back
As employment growth accelerates and housing markets improve in 2014, HIRI said it expects sales to grow by 5.9% in 2014-15 and then slow slightly for the following two years as the housing market cycle runs its course.
Hopefully, those forecasts will hold. The group also delivered some bad news this week about the past two years. After incorporating revised data Census Bureau data, HIRI said total home improvement product sales now show no growth in 2010 and a 3.1% increase in 2011, down from growth rates of 2.3% and 3.8% previously estimated for these two years.
About the Forecast
These forecasts are developed twice a year for HIRI by IHS Global Insight and include a range of key macroeconomic factors.
The full report includes details on consumer product sales by 21 merchandise product lines and individual forecasts for each of the nine Census Divisions, the group said.
History is included back to 1992, and estimates are provided to 2017.
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