By Andrea Coombes of Marketwatch,
It’s time to be jolly and apparently also the season to improve the home, according to a recent survey from Deloitte & Touche LLP, a consulting firm.
U.S. consumers plan to spend an average of $628 on improving their house this holiday season, up 84 percent from the $341 they said they would spend in 2003 at this time.
That means, of the total $2,348 consumers say they’ll spend this holiday, the biggest portion will go to the home, with 27 percent going to home improvement, 26 percent to gifts, 17 percent to socializing, 12 percent to charity, 9 percent to entertaining at home, 7 percent to nongift clothing, and 2 percent to holiday-specific furnishings, according to the 20th annual Deloitte survey of 17,440 consumers, taken in October.
The survey didn’t define home improvement, so consumers could be counting everything from buying new furniture to remodeling.
While a big portion of holiday dollars are going to home improvement, that simply reflects pricier items, said Richard Giss, a Los Angeles partner in Deloitte’s consumer business practice.
“If I buy a china hutch or a dining-room table, the outlay in dollars is enormous relative to other gifts I might give,” he said.
It’s likely that consumers’ drive to beautify their homes is connected to rising house values in recent years, he said. “There’s a belief that ‘I can spend on my home and get the money back,’ ” Giss said.