A new report from the Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI) confirms what retailers have been seeing at the register for over a year: home improvement spending in the U.S. is holding near record highs, even as the housing market remains stalled.
According to HIRI’s Q2 2026 U.S. Size of the Home Improvement Products Market report, the through-line is clearer than ever. Repairs and renovations are driving the activity. About 80% of homeowners say they’re planning future maintenance projects. And the willingness to invest in the home isn’t tied to whether consumers feel good about the economy in general — it’s tied to whether they have the disposable income to do the work.
That last point is the most useful insight in the report. HIRI explicitly notes that spending on home improvement projects is driven by disposable income, not consumer sentiment — making homeowners’ financial capacity a more reliable predictor than consumer confidence.
In other words: a homeowner who is wary about the broader economy but has the cash to fix the deck will fix the deck. The fact that they’re not feeling great about interest rates, the stock market, or the political climate doesn’t stop them.
What’s Driving the Resilience
The contrast with the housing market sharpens the picture. 73% of homeowners say right now is a bad time to buy a new house. First-time buyer activity dropped to historic lows in Q2. Existing homeowners with low-rate mortgages aren’t selling. Builders are pulling back on starts.
By every traditional measure, the housing market is stuck.
And yet the home improvement aisle is busy. That apparent contradiction makes more sense when you look at the underlying behavior. When a homeowner decides not to move, they don’t take that money and put it in a savings account. They put it into the house they have. The kitchen they were going to upgrade in the next place becomes the kitchen they upgrade now. The backyard they were going to expand in the new home becomes the backyard they invest in this summer.
That’s the foundation underneath the spending numbers. Stalled mobility isn’t suppressing home improvement demand — it’s redirecting it.
Larger Projects Are Softening
The HIRI report does flag one shift in the project mix. Larger-scale remodels are taking a back seat in 2026. Full kitchen tear-outs, major bathroom additions, room additions — these higher-ticket projects are less common than they were two or three years ago. Tighter budgets and elevated material costs both play a role.
What’s replacing them is the broad base of maintenance and refresh work. Repairs. Updates. Smaller-scope improvements that solve a specific problem or freshen a specific space without the cost and disruption of a full overhaul.
That’s a meaningful shift in mix that retailers should reflect in stocking and merchandising. The customer isn’t gone — they’re just shopping the middle of the project list more than the top.
What It Means
For hardware and home improvement retailers across the industry, the HIRI report is a real signal of strength. A few takeaways:
- The customer is still here. Record-level spending despite a stuck housing market means the underlying demand for repair, maintenance, and improvement is genuinely resilient. The retail environment isn’t easy, but the customer is showing up.
- Disposable income is the metric to watch. HIRI’s finding that financial capacity beats consumer confidence as a predictor is worth absorbing. Track the indicators that move disposable income — wage growth, energy costs, household savings rates — more than consumer sentiment surveys.
- Stock the maintenance and refresh middle. With larger remodels softening and 80% of homeowners planning future maintenance, the basket has clearly shifted. Make sure your assortment, signage, and displays reflect where the customer is actually shopping — middle-of-project, problem-solving, refresh-grade.
- The five-year outlook stays favorable. HIRI’s forecast extends out five years. The structural drivers — homeowners staying put, aging housing stock, maintenance-driven demand — aren’t temporary. The customer who’s renovating instead of relocating is going to keep doing both for a while.
The Bigger Picture
The HIRI report adds another data point to a story that has now been building for the better part of two years. The home improvement industry is operating in an unusual moment — housing is unwell, sentiment is mixed, materials cost more, and yet the customer keeps showing up to fix and improve the house they’re in.
For retailers across every scale and channel, that’s a story worth holding onto. The next five years probably won’t look like a boom market. But they won’t look like a bust market either. They’ll look like a maintenance market — built on the homeowner who is staying put and choosing to make where they are work better.
That’s a customer the industry knows well. And one that, by every recent indication, is going to keep choosing to invest.
Source: Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI), Q2 2026 U.S. Size of the Home Improvement Products Market report.
