Home improvement spending stays strong as repairs drive demand

Repairs and renovations kept home-improvement demand firm in the first quarter of 2026, with the Home Improvement Research Institute saying spending stayed near record levels even as housing turnover slowed. The clearest shift is in mix, not volume: maintenance, replacement and smaller DIY refreshes are doing more of the work, while large-scale remodels are losing momentum.

That matters on the floor at The Home Depot because the customer is showing up with a shorter list and a more practical one. HIRI said nearly 80% of homeowners were planning future maintenance projects, and 73% said it was a bad time to buy a new house. That combination points to reinvestment in the homes people already own, which keeps repair-first aisles active even when full gut jobs and discretionary upgrades soften.

The numbers inside Home Depot’s own quarter fit that picture. The company reported first-quarter fiscal 2026 sales of $41.8 billion, up 4.8% from a year earlier, while U.S. comparable sales rose 0.4%. Management said underlying demand was relatively similar to fiscal 2025, despite greater consumer uncertainty and housing-affordability pressure. For associates, that means less of the easy-volume, big-ticket remodel business and more of the steady work that comes from leaking fixtures, worn-out appliances, aging roofs and refreshes that get done one room at a time.

The housing backdrop is still tight. The U.S. Census Bureau put the national homeowner vacancy rate at 1.1% in the first quarter of 2026 and the homeownership rate at 65.3%. Existing-home sales rose 3.2% in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.17 million, after April came in at 4.02 million, a modest improvement but still far from the kind of turnover that tends to spark bigger remodeling chains. HIRI’s read is that repair and replacement projects continue to anchor demand because people are staying put longer and fixing what they have.

That mix also explains why the pro desk and value-focused aisles still matter. HIRI-linked data showed 72% of homeowners bought home-improvement products from big-box retailers in 2025, and 24% used both DIY help and contractor help, up from 20% in 2024. For store managers and department leads, that means the best-positioned stores are the ones that can serve both ends of the same project: a homeowner buying materials for a weekend repair and a pro coming back for the next job.