The home remodeling market should see strong double-digit growth in 2014, according to the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA), released Thursday by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. LIRA is designed to estimate national homeowner spending on improvements for the current quarter and subsequent three quarters. "The ongoing growth that we've seen in home prices, housing starts and existing home sales is also being reflected in home improvement activity," Eric S. Belsky, managing director of the Joint Center, said in a statement. "As owners gain more confidence in the housing market, they are likely to undertake home improvements that they have deferred."
But Kermit Baker, director of the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center, warns that growth may begin to ebb near the middle of the year. "By that time, we'll be approaching the pre-recessionary levels of spending, and with borrowing costs starting to creep back up, growth rates are likely to slow some," he said in a statement.
