Survey: Home Spending for the Holidays(December 21, 2005) -- Consumers plan to spend $2,348 on average during the holidays, with 27 percent of the money put toward residential upgrades, according to a survey by Deloitte & Touche.
Consumers will spend an average of $628 on various improvements—from new furniture to remodeling—marking a gain of 84 percent from $341 in 2003.
However, Kermit Baker, director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, says construction-related improvements usually are undertaken in the spring and summer. Baker reports that third-quarter expenditures totaled $139 million, rising 4.4 percent from the July-through-September period of 2004.
Double-digit gains were reported during the final quarter of 2004 and the first quarter of 2005, leading Baker to believe that home-improvement spending may be on the brink of weakening somewhat in response to a slowdown in the overall housing market.
Source: MarketWatch (12/20/05); Coombes, Andrea
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