4 Reasons Why Millennials Should Renovate Their Homes

This blog was contributed by Dago Garcia, Senior Content Marketing Manager at Hearth

In 2020, 37% of home buyers were Millennials – the largest portion in the U.S. This growing demographic of homeowners values several factors when it comes to home improvement and renovations – all for good reason.

According to Harvard’s Improving America’s Housing 2021 study, while the U.S. economy decreased in 2020, spending on home improvements and repairs grew to nearly $420 billion.

Here are 4 reasons why home improvement has become increasingly important for millennials:

1. Increase your home value
Compared to Boomers and Gen Xers, Millennials see investing in home improvement as an immediate need in order to increase home value and ROI. They have spent or plan to spend an average of $10,000 a year on projects. In 2019, Millennials listed ROI as their primary reason for renovating, mostly due to the fact that 67% of homes bought by Millennials were fixer uppers needing a partial or full renovation.

2.Increase your credit score
In 2019, only 3% of American homeowners used financing for their home improvement projects — that means most people are missing out on opportunities to improve their credit score through financing. With companies like Hearth allowing contractors to offer credit cards at 0% and loans from 1k to 100k, you can improve the value of your home through smaller monthly payments that eventually improve your credit score.

3. Increase your knowledge about home maintenance and renovations
According to a recent Harris Poll, Millennials want to be competent in home maintenance and improvement, yet almost one-third don’t feel confident changing a lightbulb! Participating in home improvement early on in life can set you up for a future as a knowledgeable homeowner with maintenance and renovation skills.

4. Increase comfortability in your home
The way millennials view their space is constantly changing, especially with the effects of 2020 on everyone’s mind. Millennials are now motivated to make their home not only more livable, but also have a high resale value by adding: home offices (64%), home gyms (49%), and pools and hot tubs (43%).